


Their Duties to the Queen

by MissIzzy



Series: Handmaiden Chronicles [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Gen, Guerrilla Warfare, Handmaidens, Leadership, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Original Character(s), Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2005-08-01
Updated: 2016-08-13
Packaged: 2017-11-17 07:18:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 61,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/549012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissIzzy/pseuds/MissIzzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What those handmaidens left behind on Naboo during the Trade Federation invasion did there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This draws on a single EU source which claims that as Queen Padmé had 13 handmaidens, and the five we see onscreen are merely the ones with her at all times.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The thirteen handmaidens and their pledge.

The future Queen of Naboo stood in the middle of the ceremonial grove with thirteen young women lined up in front of her. She had grown familiar with each of them over the last five days. They ranged in age from 12 to 24, though each had her height and long hair, and enough resemblance to her that they could be made up at an hour’s notice to look like her if need be. Each of them were also brave, strong, and had spent months training for their new duty. But still it overwhelmed her, the idea that thirteen women would now swear the next four years, if not eight, and even after that almost their lives to her.

Captain Panaka nodded to the first. “It is time.”

She approached her new mistress, and knelt in front of the tiny pool of water at her feet. “Padme Amidala, I, [Sabé Andierre](http://www.jimandellen.org/izzy/tdttq1.jpg), swear to you my life and my death. I will serve you ever faithfully, and protect you, until my death, or yours, which will not happen as long as it is in my power to prevent it.” The oath was unchanged from back when it really was for life, because the position of Queen was likewise. Even now, after she stepped down to the throne Padmé would remain able to call Sabé back into her service if for any reason she should have need for her.

“Stand.” Sabé obeyed, then she walked around Padmé, and stood behind her, though Padmé could see her reflection in the pool. She bent her head, and Panaka placed a dark hood over it, obscuring her face. That was how she would live from then on, standing behind the Queen, noone quite sure who she was.

Padmé could not help but feel her heart clench a little. If Sabé had been older, maybe she wouldn't have been as bothered. But she was only 16. Her eyes fell on the younger members of the group. They lingered especially on the twelve-year old girl. With the exception of the handmaidens of the ten-year old Queen Roninil several centuries ago, there had never been a younger girl to make this pledge in service to her Queen.

Sabé was the bravest of the thirteen, and she was the ringleader. No matter who else was on duty, Sabé would be in command of them, and she would always be the first choice of decoy.

Padmé felt better about the next handmaiden, of only because at 24, [Rabe Excenil](http://www.jimandellen.org/izzy/tdttq1.jpg) was the oldest. But this hadn't been her first choice of career; she'd wanted to be a dancer. Yet she might have been the ringleader herself, if it weren’t for her age and complexion, both of which meant more work in disguising her as the future Queen. She came from the less inhabited side of Naboo.

[Eirtaé Lasara](http://www.jimandellen.org/izzy/tdttq1.jpg) was 20. She was slightly different in her position then the rest of the principal five, who would be with Padmé at all times. Though she did not lack in strength or skill with a weapon, she had been chosen specifically for her expertise in royal protocol and other diplomatic affairs. It was typical for one of the main five and another one of the thirteen handmaidens to be chosen as such in order to assist any King or Queen who had not been born into a political family, which Padmé had certainly not been. She had run for Queen herself, though she had dropped out of race early, and Padmé suspected when she left office she would run again.

That the final two of the first five had made it that far surprised Padmé, due to their young age; indeed, they were the youngest of the thirteen. [Saché Aeyinson](http://www.jimandellen.org/izzy/tdttq1.jpg) was only 13, [Yané Carinda](http://www.jimandellen.org/izzy/tdttq1.jpg) only 12. They both were fierce fighters, despite their young age, perhaps too aggressively so. Yané’s father was a weapons maker, and she was the best markswoman of the thirteen.

When Yané had stepped behind Padmé and been shrouded, the remaining eight stepped forward. They would not serve in as many duties as the first five, but their lives would be just as uprooted by their duties, and their pledge was the same. [Briné Salmune,](http://www.jimandellen.org/izzy/tdttq2.jpg) 17, not an official protocol expert, but an informal expert on the Gunguns. [Coté Lanlin](http://www.jimandellen.org/izzy/tdttq2.jpg), 16, who carried around with her rumors of a strange childhood, and stranger powers, which might or might not be like those of the Jedi. [Lané Catalin,](http://www.jimandellen.org/izzy/tdttq2.jpg) 14, another girl from a political family, the auxiliary protocol expert. [Vatié Bibble,](http://www.jimandellen.org/izzy/tdttq2.jpg) 15, daughter to the governor. She hesitated as she spoke the vow, and Padmé despite all the girl's words to the contrary feared her father had pressured her into her path, though it was hard for her to imagine Sio Bibble doing such a thing to his daughter.

It was again a comfort to see the next three, who were older. [Losté Maiterrie,](http://www.jimandellen.org/izzy/tdttq2.jpg) 19, a fellow farmer’s daughter. [Ené Warsilo,](http://www.jimandellen.org/izzy/tdttq2.jpg) 20, born in the Lake country like Briné, but her family had moved to Theed when she was relatively young. [Ardré Kartik,](http://www.jimandellen.org/izzy/tdttq2.jpg) 21, who like Coté was said to have a mysterious past and mysterious powers.

When only one girl stood next to Captain Panaka, there was a pause. Everyone knew this last girl had not been meant to be a handmaiden. Before she had turned 13, the age of majority on Naboo, her parents had entered her into the running, believing King Veruna would win another term, but those who served a King or Queen began their training before the actual election determined whether or not they would finish it; they had wanted her to benefit from that. But she had been 13 after the election, and to the open shock of her parents, she had declared she would go through with it, and they could not legally stop her.

“You can still leave,” Captain Panaka reminded her. “Once you take the oath there is no turning back, but even now, there is no penalty...”

But without waiting for his nod, she fell to her knees, nearly into the pool. “Padmé Amidala," she spoke frighteningly quickly. "I, [Moré Yelnina,](http://www.jimandellen.org/izzy/tdttq2.jpg) swear to you my life and my death. I will serve you ever faithfully, and protect you, until my death, or yours, which will not happen as long as it is in my power to prevent it.” Her fists clenched as she spoke, but her voice did not waver. There was utter silence in the grove.

The Panaka remembered himself. “Rise.”

It was a long walk for Moré, who had been put as the lowest ranking of the handmaidens by a man who had planned to replace her with an alternate grateful to have made it in. His shadow lay over her, and when she stepped behind Ardré the shadows of all twelve of the other handmaidens shaded her face, before Panaka covered it with the hood.

“Follow me.” He walked out of the grove. The women followed him single file, just possibly the only time they would walk together in their current formation. The coronation had been rehearsed with them divided into separate lines, and after that, the lesser eight’s duties would take them in and out of the Queen’s actual presence at such a rate that the fourteen of them might never again be gathered all together.

Single file they stepped onto the open-air transport. Padmé Amidala sat next to her head of security. Her handmaidens sat opposite them.

“As an elite force," Captain Panaka said to them. "You are officially under my authority. However, in dangerous situations, you will likely have to act on your own, as a completely autonomous unit. As you know, you are ranked in the order in which you sit now, starting with Sabé. Each of you is to consider yourself under the authority of the highest-ranking handmaiden within your immediate vicinity at all times.”

Even under their hoods, Padmé could see several of the handmaidens hiding amused expressions. Even if “dangerous situations” did not prove entirely non-existent during the next four or eight years, they were sure to be fairly rare.

The wild area where the handmaidens’ training camp had been held was falling away, and Theed was visible in the distance. Now Padmé spoke to her new handmaidens for the first time as their mistress. It was strange now, but she had the sad feeling she'd get used to it. “We will enter the city through the back gate and will quickly find ourselves within the old gatehouse, where the Queen always emerges for the parade.” They already knew the rest. Within that gatehouse, they would set about what would be their most common task, and they all hoped would prove their most vital one: dressing and making the Queen up for her public appearance.

The transport slid into the gatehouse and came to stop in front of a door. Panaka nodded to Padmé and left them there. Self-consciously she rose, and passed through the door.

The room was much as she had expected it. Simple furnished, well lit, and with a very large mirror. There was a cabinet on one wall, and a closet in which hung her coronation outfit.

She heard Sabé say to Rabé, “You're the only one amoung the five of us really able to properly oversee this. Take command.”

Rabé barked out orders as if she had been doing so all her life. “All right, Briné, start unloading the outfit. It’ll probably need ironing in at least one place. Ardré, check the cabinet for an iron. If there isn’t one, Eirtaé will need to go for one; she'll know where one is.”

“No need.” Ardré pulled an adaptable iron off one of the cabinet’s shelves. From the opened doors of the cabinet came the smell of many perfumes and oils, and other liquids Padmé could not identify immediately.

“Good. Vatié, could we have the holo-model of the hairstyle up? Though after all that time in the grove, we need to wash her hair. There must be some hairwash in there, but someone needs to get water. Lané, if you could? And Sabé, could you please get her to sit down?”

All three handmaidens bolted, and Padmé felt her shoulders being gripped and herself gently ushered into a seat, her hair pulled over the back. Another command from Rabé, and Losté and Ené were behind her, unpinning; she could see their forms in the mirror.

Rabé was peering over her face like a general peering over a war map. “We’ll apply the face powder after her hair is dry, but before we dress her. The dress is high-cut, but I think we should cover most of the shoulder and collar area. The red we’ll apply last of all. Ah, hairwash, thank you, Coté. Did you take a look at our powder supply?”

“Bottle’s full.”

“Thought so, but wanted to make sure. Milady, you need to undress.”

Padmé removed her cloak, her shoes, her stockings, and her dress, and watched as Yané received them. She was surprised at feeling no embarrassment at sitting in her underclothes amoung a crowd of chattering people, but instead she felt excited. The thoughts kept running through her head,  _In only a few hours I will be Queen, they’re getting the robes ready, how am I going to handle this, I’m only 14, I’m too young..._

“I have water, could somebody give me a hand?” Lané had returned carrying a full pail. “How are we going to do this?”

“We need some sort of strong sprayer. Does anyone know where we can find one?”

Moré gave an eager response: she knew exactly where to find one, she would go get it, and then she was gone. Padmé saw Sabé’s look of concern follow her. The head handmaiden herself was helping Lané carry the water.

Fortunate Sabé, to be able to take on responsibility without even thinking about it. And Rabé, who needed only a word. Though they were not without excitement, any of them. Saché had joined Losté and Ené in taking the pins, which were now nearly all out, and arranging them in front of the mirror, and her hands were visibly trembling. Others were not as obvious, but when Rabé gave her orders, she in fact was speaking a bit louder than usual, so as to be heard over everyone else’s voices. Padmé couldn’t quite make out what anyone was saying; not even Losté and Ené, who were right next to her, but that did not matter. What told their mistress far more was the handmaidens' tone, a mix of tension and joy. They talked to relieve their hearts a little.

This was as much a ritual for them as it was for her. Their commitment might not be nearly as wide as hers in scope, but it was just a big to them, and the solidifying of it was just as powerful, but there were no public display of showiness for them, no basking in glory. That was not their way.


	2. Time and Place for Fighting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Federation invades, and Saché and Yané are given their task and see the others off.

All of the previous day, Saché had waited and wondered. Sabé and Eirtaé and Rabé seemed so convinced the Trade Federation would not go so far as to invade. Yané did not dare make a prediction. Saché had spent most of her hours with the last, perfecting her aim with her laser pistol, and had not had time to talk to the other eight. But she could very well be the only one who expected the invasion the following dawn. What the Queen had expected, she dared not guess.

With reports of the droid attacks making their way through the palace, Saché and Yané came together in their chambers and continued working with their pistols, and waited for the Queen to summon them. They didn’t talk, except when Yané corrected Saché in the exact positioning of her fingers. Saché didn’t ask Yané what she was thinking. She knew only what she was thinking. Each time she blasted the target, she imagined she was blasting a battle droid. Any that dared threaten the Queen would be fried into a mess of metal as ugly as its owners, she would be sure of that.

A knock at the door, and Saché and Yané holstered their pistols. Saché went to answer.

It was Rabé. “Have we been called for?” Saché asked her.

“No,” answered Rabé, “Sabé has been called alone. Earlier this morning, Briné and Lané prepared one of the Queen’s outfits. A heavy black cloak, one of the outfits which obscures the most parts of the person wearing it. The Queen has been convinced to allow Sabé to take her place.”

This could come as no surprise, but one thing did surprise Saché. “We have not been called to help?”

“The change needs to be done with as little commotion as possible. And I have separate instructions for the two of you, and not much time to give them. I was hoping to find you together, but otherwise I would have given them to you alone, Saché. As it is, you must still pass them on to any of the eight others you can.”

“What do you mean?” Saché asked.

Rabé glanced around the corridor outside. “May I come in?”

“Of course!” Saché stepped aside. Rabé walked in; the door slid shut behind her.

“First of all,” she started, “I know this will upset the two of you, but when the palace is taken over, we are not to fight. It would be useless.”

“Not fight!” Saché was shocked. “What if they try to kill her?! Or if they try to kill all of us, that would include the Queen then!”

“If you are dead certain that they will without a doubt kill either Sabé or the Queen without your intervention, of course you must act-failure to protect Sabé in such a situation would make them suspicious. Not a second before. Do you understand?”

Saché could give no response. To assume that was what they wouldn’t do seemed to her dangerous. But Yané said for her, “We understand.”

“The Queen is convinced,” Rabé continued, her eyes hard on Saché, “we will instead end up in prison camps with the rest of population. She believes they may attempt to separate her from her guards. Of course, that would only leave Sabé on her own. But the handmaidens themselves, they would be more likely to let stay together if there were less of them.”

Saché couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She didn’t have to look at Yané to know she was equally upset. “Surely she does not mean to separate the two of us from her, as well as Sabé! We’re her three fighters!”

In her haste, it only occurred to her after the words were out that Rabé might take them as an insult. But she only said, “Captain Panaka was there when she explained this, and he said the same thing. But I think the Queen refuses the keep her strongest fighters to herself. She insists her disguise should be enough to protect her, along with myself and Eirtaé. Surely you do not deny we are able to fight.”

“Of course I don’t, but even so-”

“When they lead us out of Theed, just after we’re outside the walls, Captain Panaka will create a distraction-I don’t know exactly what he’ll do-and you are at that point to make your escape. Then you are to gather as many of the other eight as you can-Losté, Ené, and Ardré have already been sent to the outskirts of the city with instructions to meet up with you, and you are to fight against the Federation in any way you can.”

“Form a resistence movement?” Dimly she heard a  _thud_  as Yané collapsed into a nearby chair. “But we’re not-we’re just-”

But before Saché could find the words to explain that she and Yané were just not the people for such a task, they heard Eirtaé’s voice call, “Rabé, Saché, Yané. The palace is falling. We are to go to the Queen.”

Saché and Yané pulled their hoods over their heads, slid their pistols into the undersides of their gowns and followed Rabé out into the corridor. Saché was suddenly aware of the sound of the battle droids just outside the walls. She felt the pistol fall against her leg as she walked, and found its weight comforting.

They were joined in their walk by Captain Panaka. “I do not approve of this use of the two of you,” he said to Saché.

“Neither do any of us,” Rabé assured him. “But she insists. You heard the way she spoke.”

In the Queen’s chambers stood two young women waiting for them. Even if she hadn’t already been told, Saché would have known pretty quickly which of them was truly which. Neither the heavy black cloth which covered what there would have been to see on Sabé’s head or the white powder which covered the rest of her face could conceal all the differences of her features from any of the handmaiden’s eyes, though they might from the rest of the world. And while the rest of the world might never look closely at the face even more covered by the handmaiden hood, there was no mistaking it by anyone who had spent the last month powdering it white and painting red onto it.

It was this second face that Saché turned to and spoke, “Milady, far be it from me to deny your commands, but I must protest. You ask of me and Yané a thing we are not capable of. Please, allow us to stay with you where we belong! We can defend you. We cannot lead other people. We are not leaders. Send Eirtaé and Rabé. They could do this so much better than us.”

She did not look unaffected by the plea. Rabé and Eirtaé said nothing, leaving the decision of their fate to her. It was easier for them. Either way, they would know what to do.

She was still silent when there was a hard rap at the door. “I’ll get it,” said Panaka, and strode forward, gun in hand.

Before he reached it she finally spoke. "I am sorry," she said. "But you must do what I now can not. You must protect our people."

He had barely opened the door when his gun was snatched away with a metallic “I’ll take that.” There was a host of battle droids outside, more than the six of them could hope to fight past. Rabé was right. It would be useless to fight.

At least, it would be useless to fight at this moment. But soon...if someone discovered the pistol under her skirt and took it away before that moment came, she’d use her fists until she could get her hands on another weapon. She hoped it would come before they got out of Theed.

#### The streets of Theed, not too long after

They were all going to Camp Four, now including Sio Bibble, and a number of royal guards. Where that was Saché hadn’t the slightest idea, but that they would all go together gave her the comfort that Sabé would stay with the Queen. As much as being sent away upset her, she could not bring herself to fear for the Queen if Sabé remained able to protect her.

She wished she still had her pistol. They droids had stripped them all of their weapons, of course, and the handmaidens had been searched with the others. They had treated the actual Queen exactly like the other four, but Saché had been more nervous about the Neimoidians identifying her. But Sabé had fooled them, and in fact they had barely glanced at the handmaidens before sending the whole group away with the battle droids.

They didn’t see them as a threat.  _Good_.

When they went off the plaza, Saché started trying to figure out which way they would go out of Theed. If the Queen wanted her and Yané to escape, in all likelihood they ought to be able to do it, as Saché knew the walls fairly well, and how to hide in them, and how to get away from those hiding places. But she would be most certain of success if they went out through a certain part of the city.

She was contemplating the significance of their going under the archway they were headed for, when from the top of it three figures suddenly leapt down, two humans and what looked like a Gungun, the humans with lightsabers ignited. Before anyone could react, the first two had sliced apart the droids escorting them, before the older-looking spoke. “We should leave the street, Your Highness.” None of them needed a second prompting.

Saché’s mind was in a flurry:  _Are they Jedi Knights? There’s something familiar about them...I’m being crazy._  And then suddenly the crushing, relieving thought,  _They’ve rescued us. While we’re with them, we stay with the Queen._  Indeed, as they slipped into the ally, Saché even saw Yané smile for a moment.

“We’re ambassadors for the Supreme Chancellor,” the older Jedi informed Governor Bibble.

“Your negotiations seemed to have failed, Ambassador,” Bibble pointed out.

“The negotiations never took place. It’s urgent that we make contact with the Republic.”

Meanwhile Captain Panaka had directed the taking of the weapons. Saché kept her eyes on him until it became clear there were only enough weapons for the guards. “They’ve knocked out all our communications,” he said to the Jedi.

“Do you have transports?”

Down the back alleys they ran towards the main hanger; they did not approach the edge of the city. It suddenly occurred to Saché that the Queen was unlikely to flee the planet, so if the Jedi, or maybe the Gungun, who was running alonside them and not feeling the need to say much at the moment, intended to leave, there was nothing for the rest of them to do but wait to be recaptured. And then...Saché felt a sudden urge to cry. Furiously she beat it down.

They ran into no battle droids. There were not even any at the entrance of the hanger, though Sache was certain they would be inside there. The time for fighting had started, and she could feel her moment coming.

But when Captain Panaka and the Jedi peered inside, the former’s first words were, “There’s too many of them!”

“It won’t be a problem,” the other assured him, looking first at the younger Jedi, then at Sabé. “Your Highness,” he said, “under the circumstances, I suggest you come to Coruscant with us.”

They all knew what the Queen’s response would have been to this. “Thank you, Ambassador,” Sabé replied, without hesitation, “but my place is here with my people.”

But the Jedi said, “They will kill you if you stay.” At his words Saché tensed. That they hadn’t tried to kill her immediately had eased her initial fears, but hearing this man say this now, Saché readily believed him.

“They wouldn’t dare!” Governor Bibble exclaimed. Panaka elaborated, “They need her to sign a treaty to make this invasion of theirs legal. They can’t afford to kill her.”

Saché had to admit the point there to herself, but the Jedi did not seem willing to. “There is something else behind all of this, Your Highness. There’s no logic in the Federation’s move here. My feelings tell me they will destroy you.”

“Our only hope if for the Senate to side with us,” said Governor Bibble. “Senator Palpatine will need your help.”

He didn’t believe it, Saché could tell. She thought Sabé did. But this was not Sabé’s decision to make, and so she said, “Either choice presents great danger," and then slowly turned to the Queen, who was at the forefront, and added, “to us all.” The Queen and Sabé were very good at communicating, better than any of them, and if Sabé did indeed believe that to stay would mean her death, she would let the Queen know of it, but also let her know that if the Queen wished to stay, Sabé would be willing to put herself into that fatal position for her.

Whatever exact codes the two of them had worked out Saché did not know, but she too knew a good deal about communicating with the Queen, being third in line to replace her due to Eirtaé’s looks. When she heard the Queen’s, “We are brave, your highness,” she knew what her decision was, even before Sabé turned back to the Jedi and said, “Then I will plead our case to the Senate.”

As she spoke some final words to Governor Bibble, the Queen was still signaling Sabé with her eyes, and now Saché saw her beckon to her mistress, then to Rabé and Eirtaé. The message was clear: Saché and Yané were to separate from the others now.

Saché felt her feet freeze to the floor. The tears she had held back earlier sprang forth. She tried to make some sort of protest, some sort of plea, but her vocal chords wouldn’t work. She forced herself to look at Yané, to see if she’d say anything, but she was as frozen, if not more, and the tears were soaking into her collar.

And now the others were in the hanger; she could heart the Jedi’s voice say something about Coruscant, a battle droid’s voice respond, and then she heard it say, “You’re under arrest,” and without thinking she bolted for the hanger.

Sio Bibble stepped in front of her; both she and Yané crashed into him. “Don’t. The Jedi will take care of it. You two need to get out of here.”

“What about you?” demanded Yané.

“I’d be missed. You two won’t. At most they’ll assume you’re with the Queen.” He glanced into the hanger, from where they could hear the hum of lightsabers and the blasts of guns. “I was right; they can take care of it. Wait until the starship has taken off, then go into the hanger and get weapons. You can get down from the hanger front, can’t you?”

Saché tried to remember the front of the hanger. “Be a bit bruised, but I think so.”

“Good. Calm down. Stop crying. You’ve got a job to do. If you can’t protect the Queen, you should protect-”

But he stopped short. Over the sound of running feet and the roar of the engines igniting in the hanger, they could hear the sound of running metallic feet, of approaching battle droids.

“If you stay here, you’ll be captured,” Saché entreated him.

“I have no choice. Just rescue my daughter if you can. I have no idea where she is, but...go!”

Spurred on with fresh tears running down their faces, Saché and Yané ran into the hanger. A heap of dissembled battle droids lay near where the starship had been parked. Yané knelt down and took a look at their weapons. “Not what we’re used to,” she said, “but we did training for them at one point. Do you remember how to engage the safety?”

She was right. Saché just hoped her aim was as good with them as they were with their usual pistols. At that moment, she could not bring herself to rely on her own.

Each of them nonetheless took a gun, engaged the safeties, and stuffed them into the holsters under their skirts. Then they ran to the edge of the hanger and slid down the marble, which slanted into the hard ground at the edge of the cliff.

From the cliffs on which Theed was built, typically one could see nothing but the green and blue of the country beyond. Just below the cliffs, Saché assumed, there were battle droids and prisoners, but they did not extend into her current line of sight. As they clambered to their feet and got their bearings, for a moment there was the illusion that there was no invading army, but that they were instead all alone on Naboo.

“I think we’re responsible for the others now,” said Yané. Her voice was very, very small. “What do we do?”

Yané might speak of both of them, but Saché suddenly felt a weight settle on her shoulders which she didn’t think would be any heavier if Yané hadn’t existed. She was still a child by her age, and 12 was an especially difficult age, one Saché herself was barely over, but she was over it, and she alone was responsible for her, and for the other eight. She wiped her face clean, and thought,  _I will not cry again._

She thought for a moment, then replied, “I think if any of the others are still in the city, they must have been taken by now, and the two of us couldn’t rescue any of them alone. We have to hope they got out. At any rate, I’m fairly certain Ené, Losté, and Ardré all did. We make for the waterfall. It’s pretty close to here. Keep your gun out.”

They crept along, two orange dots on the deep green cliff. As they approached the waterfall, the foliage thinned, and they crawled through the bushes on their hands and knees, their fingers never far from the triggers of their blasters, their eyes and ears open, alert for the first sign of a battle droid. Saché wished they weren’t wearing their orange gowns. She thought longingly of the yellow-green gowns. They might come with yellow wraps, but those could easily be discarded.

Finally the waterfall loomed before them, the noise filled their ears and the ground was wet from the spray that fell on their faces and gowns. “Now we’re going to have to go back amoung the buildings, to get into the secret passage,” Saché whispered directly into Yané’s ear. Even so, she had to whisper loudly, relying on the waterfall to prevent anyone else from hearing.

“Battle droids,” Yané mouthed. Saché had already seen them. There were two of them guarding the entrance to the museum, several meters right in front of the two girls.

“I don’t see any others. Let’s blast them.” So this was it. Her moment come at last, when her Queen was far away.

She took a quick look at Yané aiming. Fright showed on her face, but her grip on the blaster was steady.

“Fire!” she yelled, and they both pulled their triggers. Two bolts of light flew from their weapons, striking each of the droids full on the torso. They both fell back onto the ground.

“Run!” They tore across the marble, hurrying towards the museum doors, only to see them open.

It was only then that Saché realized it didn’t make sense to have droids guarding the museum unless there was something in there.

Battle droids poured out. Without thinking they fired at them, diving desperately to avoid return fire, only to find themselves up against the wall surrounded on all side by droids with blasters pointed at them. “Loose inhabitants,” one of them said. “Take them to the-”

But suddenly there was a burst of gunfire from the museum doors. Droids fell to join those already shot down, and Coté raced out, still firing, and followed by Lané, Vatié, and Moré, each shooting down droids as fast as their laser pistols would fire. The droids surrounding Saché and Yané turned to deal with this new threat, and Yané took advantage of the distraction to release a thick volley of shots which took out their circle of captors.

“Come on!” Coté yelled, frying the last of the droids outside. “We can get to the passage if we run for it!”

They had taken out most of the droids which had been in the museum entrance hall, and another round of blaster fire fried the rest. “We can’t wait anymore,” shouted Coté, “not now that they know we’re here.”

“I think Ené, Losté, and Ardré are already outside the city anyway,” Saché yelled back. “As for Briné....well, I hope she is! The Queen’s escaped to Coruscant with Sabé, Eirtaé, and Rabé; she’s going to try to get the Senate to intervene. Do you have any idea how many droids are in here?”

“They’re storing a bunch of them in here. We located the storage units, but I don’t think we can destroy them; they’re too well guarded.”

“Then we’ll have to come back in here with the some charges, if we can get our hands on them,” Saché determined, “unless you think we can do it with only Ené, Losté, and Ardré to help us.”

“But once they find the passage,” Lané pointed out, “won’t they seal it off?”

“Then we’re just going to have to fry every single droid who has an inkling we’re in this building!” To emphasize her point, Saché swiftly blasted three droids in the corridor they had just turned down. “It’s a well-concealed secret passage, and we have to leave them with no reason to believe of its existence, so they won’t look for it!” More droids, more blasts. “Get them before they can fire!”

No one needed any more instruction. Through more corridors and down the stairs they ran, towards the storage basement. “What about the droid parts?” Vatié suddenly asked. “Won’t they think someone’s been through this building if they see them lying around?”

This worry brought them all to a halt. “Then we just have to get out of here, there’s nothing for it,” Saché sighed.

“No, wait a second,” said Yané. She raced back up the stairs. The others followed, and saw her blast two droids at the top of it. “Someone hand me a gun.”

Saché gave Yané hers, and they watched as she carefully extracted the unused guns from the droids still-intact limbs and replaced them with her own and Saché’s blasters, then carefully position the droids to make it look as if they shot each other. “I’ve heard my father talk about these battle droids,” she explained. “It’s very common for them to malfunction. These two can be assumed to have gone off on a shooting spree and then turned on each other.”

“Good,” said Saché. “And any droids we find in the basement we throw into the passage.”

“Do you know where Ené, Losté, and Ardré are?” Coté asked as they started back down the stairs.

“All I know is they’re somewhere outside the city, and the original plan was for Yané and me to meet them.”

“The original plan?” repeated Coté, confused.

“She kept it too much under wraps, I see,” said Saché. “She wants the ten of us to form some sort of resistence to the Federation. That’s why she left the two of us behind, I think. Does anybody have any sort of communication device?”

“I do,” said Vatié, “but it’s only programmed to get in contact with my father." Then she came to a full stop on the stairs. "Wait a minute, where is my father? Did he escape too?”

Saché decided to answer that question later. “Yané, do you think you can hotwire it?”

“I don’t know, I’m not good on communication devices, I’d have to look at it first. Can I see it, Vatié?”

But Vatié would not be dissuaded that easily. “Where’s my father?” she demanded. “Tell me!”

“Vatié, quiet!” Lané begged softly. “There might still be droids up there!”

Saché, not sure of what else to do, grabbed Vatié by the shoulders and steered her down the stairs, speaking quickly. “Your father let himself get captured so they wouldn’t come after the two of us, since once they’ve deduced the Queen’s left the planet they’ll assume we’re with her. I don’t know what they’ll assume about the rest of you, but he begged me to get you out of here, so you will keep on walking.”

“WHAT?”

“Don’t, Vatié,” said Coté, coming alongside of them and gently placing her hand on Vatié’s shoulder. To Saché’s relief Vatié relaxed, and kept on walking.

They reached the basement without further incident. The secret passage was accessed by removing a panel on the far wall, where the light from the stairway faded into darkness in which they felt for the cracks in the wall.

When Moré found the passage, she released what was perhaps too loud a cry of triumph, but it drew the others to her as they heard the rough sliding sound of the panel being moved aside.

“Wait a minute,” said Saché slowly. “None of us have a light with us, do we?”

“The communicator releases a little light,” Vatié suggested.

“Better than nothing. Well, we’ve all been up and down this passage at least once; we all know the way. Let’s see how much we remember. Let me have the communicator. Then go to the back with Coté and Lané and make sure the panel clicks shut after us.”

The light from Vatié’s communicator initially didn’t seem like much better than nothing. Saché held it in front of her, but with the panel back in place, it showed neither the walls nor the steps.

Still Saché advanced, hoping at least the others would be able to see her outline. She heard their footsteps as they followed her.

Slowly, their eyes became accustomed to the dark space. When she lowered the light a bit, Saché could see the first steps downward and the direction they led in. She could even, as she walked, keep a vague idea in her head of just where behind the waterfall they were.

The concept of where they were grew stronger when the sound of the crashing water penetrated through the rock, got louder before dying down a little. Finally the light of the communicator revealed the door that ended the passage.

“Weapons ready,” Saché ordered. Her own blaster cocked, she stepped forward and slid the door open just enough to look outside. “I don’t see anything, but carefully...” She slid the door open the rest of the way. There were no battle droids in the area.

One by one they filtered out into the open air. The glare of Naboo’s sun nearly blinded them.

When their eyes had again adjusted, they gathered around Yané, who examined the communicator. “So,” she started, “it’s a....well, it's a....”

“You can’t do it, can you?” Coté cut in.

Yané looked relieved as she said, “No.”

“Okay, then,” said Coté, and all eyes promptly flew to her. Seeing this, she smiled and said, “You’ve heard, I assume, of the rumors that I have...unusual abilities.”

“I want to know what they are,” said Saché. “We’re in a situation where we have to know all our assets.”

But Coté replied, “I can’t tell you what they are; I don’t know what they are. I only know when I can use them. But I know where Ené, Losté, and Ardré all are. I’m afraid I don’t know about Briné. I think she must have been captured.”

“Fine,” said Saché. “Lead on.”


	3. A Mystery or Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gathering up the rest of the handmaidens.

It took Coté about an hour to track down Losté, Ené, and Ardré. An hour during which she and Saché snuck around the borders of the city, Saché taking careful note of where there were battle droids, and where it looked like there were going to continue to be battle droids, though Coté’s concentration seemed to be fully on her task-by necessity, Saché assumed, though she didn’t ask. Coté led; Saché followed and guarded. The others were waiting by the waterfall.

It wasn’t Coté, however, who first alerted Saché to the exact location of the three handmaidens. It was the streak of blaster fire that flew dangerously near Coté’s arm and made both girls jump back, before returning fire, and then the yell of, “Wait! Stop!”

Losté emerged from the bushes; Ené and Ardré followed. “Terribly sorry,” she said, “we didn’t see you clearly, we heard footsteps and thought it was battle droids; we think we’re being followed.”

“That’s not good,” said Saché. “We were really hoping noone would remember our existence.”

“Little hope of that, I’m afraid. But they might think there are less of us than there are. Exactly how many are there? And where’s the Queen? Was she on that ship we saw blast out of the hanger?”

“She was. She’s off to Coruscant to seek action from the Senate. She took Sabé, Eirtaé, and Rabé with her. We’ve got everyone else with us except Briné. We think she’s been captured.”

“What did she expect us to do though?” Ené wondered out loud. “What can the nine of us do against-” There was another streak of blaster fire, and the five of them whirled around “-them?” she finished.

“Shoot them!” replied Saché, firing away as the battle droids emerged from out of nowhere, a whole stream of them.

“How many of them are there?” Losté cried.

“Too many!” answered Ené.

Too many sounded just about right, and the girls desperately shot and dodged, fleeing through whatever foliage they thought could help them shake the droids. Then three more droids appeared in front of them, too quickly to keep them from crashing right into them. But no sooner had they appeared when Ardré threw herself in front of the others and blasted them so hard they knocked over the droids behind them.

“Ardré!” Saché yelled, and quick as lightening, she was out of the way, and all five were quick to take advantage of the droids’ momentary unsteadiness.

“There are more behind us!” Even as Ardré yelled the warning, she was firing, moving to knock out front droids with her arms, amazingly fast-and suddenly Saché realized what about the Jedi had seemed so familiar.

But there was no time to think about that; they couldn’t assume at the moment that Ardré could really take all the battle droids down by herself, and so tried to assess the situation while she continued to fire. But Ardré had encourage Losté and Ené; they too had gone on the aggressive, knocking down droids as well as firing at them, and she and Coté then followed suit, until one of the droid’s blasts hit Ené on the side of the face, and she cried out and fell.

But now the ranks were clearly thinning, and the girls were fighting with everything they had, kicking with their feet when they could. Then it was over, they stood in a smoking heap of droid parts, and they all hurried over to Ené.

She was in clear agony, her teeth sunk into her hands to keep herself from screaming, but they were lucky; the blast had only grazed her skin, and left both her eyes and ears untouched. “Good thing you tried that,” Losté remarked to Ardré. “Our speed must have messed up their aim. If they had been able to aim, I admit, we all would have been dead...”

“I know some of us have to have some good medical knowledge,” said Saché. “Losté, you have some, don’t you?”

“A little,” Losté sighed, “but I’m afraid our real medic is Briné!”

“We’ll have to do whatever first aid we can, then. Anyone besides you and Briné with any extra knowledge whatsoever?”

“Moré, I think. But this looks pretty basic, anyway. It can only be a second-degree burn for the most part; otherwise she wouldn’t be in pain. But I don’t like this...” She gestured to the center of the burn. “I shouldn't touch it with dirty hands. Ené, can you tell me where the pain is?”

Ené shook her head. Saché could see tears in her eyes.

“Let’s get her back to Moré and others,” Losté suggested. “I can tell much better what to do with more opinions. Though I’m afraid they definitely know we’re here.”

“And that we’re to be reckoned with,” Saché mused, looking around again. “What we need to do now is simply not be found. Okay, you," she continued, turning towards Ardré. "You have some explaining to do."

"I don't understand," Ardré protested. She sounded genuinely confused. She hadn't expected Saché to notice anything. Now Saché really was angry.

"We cannot keep secrets from each other," she growled at Ardré, "but if you're keeping none, then there's something odd going on with you, because your fighting skills back there weren't natural. As a matter of fact, the only two people I've seen that quick were a pair of Jedi Knights!"

At this, Ardré visibly went pale, and Saché knew she had been right. "What is in this 'don't care to talk about it' past of yours?"

"You're being awfully intrusive!" Ardré snapped. "What business is it of yours what I did in my past?"

The two of them had been advancing forward on each other, and Ardré suddenly seemed much taller. Saché felt her young age, and very nearly backed down.

"Listen, Ardré," she said, "I am the leader here, like it or not. We all assume you to know better than to challenge my authority, especially now, when we absolutely cannot fight amoung ourselves. Keep your other secrets if you like, but I want to know what you can do."

“I will keep my secrets, thank you very much. Unless you’d care to say what happened with your parents, dead core calling the cosmos black! I can pretty much do what you saw me do back there. In fact, I can pretty much do what you saw me do at the training camp!”

Saché remembered what Ardré could do at the training camp very well: beat any one of them, including Captain Panaka, at hand-to-hand combat. It was the reason she was one of them even though she looked absolutely nothing like the Queen. “You can’t...”

“Move objects around with my head or wield a lightsaber without disastrous results? I assure you, I cannot provide you with those services.”

“She’s telling the truth,” said Coté. Even before Coté had admitted to anything special, the others had generally trusted her judgement on whether someone was being truthful or not, and Saché did now.

"Fine," Saché said. "Let's go rejoin the others."

She had been telling the truth, but Coté had not mentioned to Saché that she had not been telling the whole truth. If she said a superior form of ordinary fighting skills was all she could offer, that was true, and it was really all Saché needed to know. But her words had been carefully chosen. There were memories. They were vague to Coté; memories always were, but Ardré had once had other abilities.

Walking back, she found herself and Ardré falling behind slightly. She could sense, furthermore, Saché and Losté’s absorption is trying to figure out how to sooth Ené’s pain, which really was overwhelming. So she moved very close to Ardré and whispered, “I think if we wished to go over details, we would not now be paid attention to.”

“I can’t keep secrets from you, can I?”

“You can keep their specifics to yourself if you like.”

“Not as strong as I thought, then. But for mental abilities, when it comes to me...”

“You no longer have them at all,” Coté finished for her.

“So you know I once had them. What else do you know?”

“I know you once had all the abilities of the Jedi,” a slight amount of amusement from Ardré, “well, not quite...but clearly you had something to do with them.”

“I walked out of their Order ten years ago,” Ardré informed her. “When I decided I didn’t want to be part of it. And okay, when I started to believe they wouldn’t let me be either-long story. I decided against using what I’d learned. I even left my lightsaber with them, though I don't know if they'd have let me leave if I hadn't done that. You don’t use your abilities, you eventually lose a number of them.”

“What about you,” she asked a few minutes later. “The Force is strong with you, I think; I can still sort of sense that.”

“But I have the advantage over you here,” Coté replied, “in that you can't detect bits of my past, and I’m afraid I would not care to discuss it any more than Saché would. No, before you ask, I can’t tell much about her. I’ve no control of when my abilities kick in, though my mind automatically makes use of them, I suppose. You really stung her with that comment, you know.”

“Good, I wanted to," was Ardré's grim response to this. "If she wants to be leader, she needs to be able to take a few extra blows.”

#### By the waterfall, about an hour later

The first thing Losté did after handing Ené over to Moré was wash her hands, and dry them on her cloak. When she returned, she found everyone gathered around the two of them, and Moré very carefully touching the burn in places, while Ené alternated between screaming in pain and shaking her head in response to Moré’s inquires about it hurting.

“We really should get her to a hospital,” she finally said. Losté nodded her head in agreement.

“Well, we can’t,” Saché reminded them. “There’s not much we can do except keep her warm against shocks and such. Everyone lend me your cloaks. Do you think we can use that water on her? Is it cold?”

“Not as cold as I’d like,” Losté answered. “When the sun has warmed it a bit more, she should drink some of it to prevent dehydration.”

“These blasters involve a lot of chemicals,” added Yané. “We need to rinse the entire burn.”

The water was clearly soothing; Saché could see Ené relax slightly. She then submitted to being wrapped up in all the spare cloth they had and drank some of the warmed water.

“So what now?” asked Lané.

Saché wished she’d given more thought to that. “We can’t stay here,” she determined, “now that they’re looking for us. We need to find some place they won’t look at.”

“That’s nowhere in this area,” said Coté.

“We need a place they won’t look at immediately,” Saché continued, “but is still close enough so that if we get our hands on any charges we can blow the droid facility in the museum. Unless you think the addition of Losté and Ardré are enough-?”

“No,” said Coté immediately. “It’s going to be difficult enough to get the charges laid once we have them, and without them, we would only make a dent, easily repairable. So are you setting that as our priority?”

“Yes, I am.” Actually, Saché definitely hadn’t thought that far in advance. The realization that of course the others had been expecting her to hit her hard. But truth be told, she wanted that droid facility. In fact, she had to remind herself right then and there not to get too determined about destroying it until doing so was actually possible.

She considered the lands around Theed. There was a lot of swampland on Naboo, and some of it wasn’t too far away. The advantages against the battle droids were obvious, but they would be obvious to the Neimoidians as well, and it might well be the first place they would look. How long could they hold out? And was it a wise idea to take Ené into such an environment?

“There’s something odd about the river,” said Vatié, cutting into Saché’s thoughts. Her attention drawn to the river, she saw immediately Vatié was right. Normally after crashing at the bottom of the cliffs, the water continued to rush and froth for only a short length of the river before slowing down to an almost lazy pace. But even from their distance, there were visibly currents of water looking like they were running upriver, which broke against the more active water nearer the falls.

“Battle droids can’t swim, can they?” asked Moré.

“I don’t think so,” answered Yané. "They'd risk rusting up."

“Let’s take a closer look,” said Saché, beckoning to Yané.

Hands on their blasters, eyes scanning the surrounding countryside, Saché and Yané made their way down the river. But neither were able to make any sense out of the water’s behavior, and Yané called, “Coté, you don’t happen to sense anyone around?”

“No,” came Coté’s response, “but I can’t sense battle droids. I can’t always even sense people, remember.”

“Who says it’s so small as a few battle droids or some person? Anything could be happening to this river,” Saché mused to herself. In her head the thought that they should find out what was happening warred with the knowledge they’d lingered by the waterfall too long, and the entire group needed to move.

“Yané,” she finally said, “make for the Small Swamp with the others while Ardré and I go down the river a bit. We’ll circle around and meet you there.”

Coté took a place alongside Yané when they started fording the river where the water was slow. All of them could swim, but as the top of the water moved close to their shoulders, still flowing in the wrong direction, it made Yané nervous. She thought it ironic that she and Coté were at the front; while with the exception of the tall Ardre, all of them were roughly the Queen’s height, exact measurements had been taken and she and Coté were on record as being the shortest. The tallest after Ardré was actually Ené, but as Losté and Moré were doing their best to carry her above the water as they waded, this was only a disadvantage, even though Losté was third-tallest.

When the far shore was in her reach, Yané grabbed for it in a very undignified manner. Coté did the same. Behind them Lané laughed, and Vatié loudly shushed her. Yet when Yané and Coté had pulled themselves up onto the river bank, both girls grabbed for it in the same way. Then Vatié’s grip fumbled, and she lost her footing and was grabbed into the river current.

For a moment Yané, Coté, Lané, Losté, and Moré looked at each other in horror. Then Yané moved to jump back in, Coté pulled herself up and began running down the bank alongside Vatié, who was keeping herself above water but barely, and Lané began swimming determinedly after her. Losté and Moré began moving quicker, obviously hoping to put Ené on the shore before following Lané’s example.

When Yané’s foot caught onto a rock, her jump gave way to a tumble, and she hit the thrashing water headfirst. Her head bobbed above the water and then vanished. Lané promptly abandoned her pursuit of Vatié and went after the younger handmaiden.

Finally Vatié was able to grab onto the riverbank. The next second Coté had grabbed onto her and hauled her out of the river. The moment she was certainly of her safety she left her soaking and shivering and also ran towards Yané.

Panic had taken hold of Yané, pounded at her mind as she desperately tried to remember what to do. She could vaguely hear Lané, Losté, and Moré yelling. Then some calming presence entered her mind, and she stopped thrashing about so randomly, but concentrated on keeping her head above water.

“Swim, can you swim?” she heard Lané say, and felt someone grab onto her. But now they were in the thick of the current, and it was all they could do to keep a hold on each other until they were thrown against where the currents met, where Losté suddenly appeared in front of them, grabbed Lané’s hand, and yanked.

She was holding on to Moré, Yané realized a second later, and Moré was near the shore, reaching out to grab Coté’s hand. They had put Ené safely on the riverbank.

Fighting their fatigue, Yané and Lané swam through the contrary current, allowed themselves to be pulled into the bank, where Vatié was ready to receive them as she herself had been received. When there was once again dry ground beneath her sore limbs, all Yané wanted to do was collapse, and perhaps the only thing that kept her from doing so was Saché’s voice calling, “Are you all okay? We heard you shouting...”

She raised her head and saw Saché and Ardré standing on the other side of the river, out of breath from having run back. Saché’s question obviously was addressed to her. “I think we’ve got everything under control now,” she shouted in reply. “Have you found anything?”

“Nothing useful, except that the course of the river seems to have been altered, so far, in all but its very end. We’ll keep searching.”

“We’ll keep going this way. Come on, we’ve got to pull ourselves up...”

The sun would dry them out in time but as they walked at first, their heavy clothes weighed them down until several of the girls found themselves trying to simply tear off their hoods. Yané took the lead, blaster at the ready. “We’ll take as much cover as we can. Those trees should provide some.” Mentally she was mapping out the grounds surrounding Theed as she walked, tracing their diagonal route to where it could meet with another diagonal heavy in foliage.

The trees might provide good cover, but they also provided a chill, and shadows. Yané surreptitiously observed the others, but once they gave up on their hoods, they took it stoicly. She also noted that Coté actually looked more at home in the shadows. She beckoned her over. “Help me keep watch up here.”

She ended up bringing Losté and Ené with her, which Yané liked; it would keep Ené well covered. In fact, she made a mental note to keep Ené by her as much as possible from then on. Lané, Vatié, and Moré brought up the rear, and they had their pistols drawn.

It was Lané who alerted them who something amiss by firing her pistol. There was an explosion in the bushes. When no further blaster fire made itself apparent, Yané and Coté led the group over and discovered the remains of droideka which looked like it had a scanner attached. “They’re everywhere,” Vatié said simply.

“We’re walking quicker,” replied Yané.

Easier said than done, perhaps, when they had to deal with Ené. While she gritted her teeth harder and really did try to walk faster with the others, Losté kept having the pull her along, and Yané felt her patience start to give.

Then there was a rustling in the bushes, and six pistols were trained on a flock of nunas. “I don’t think we’re that close to the swamp,” said a confused Vatié.

“I think something’s driven them from their normal grounds,” said Coté.

“So we can’t go to the swamp?” asked Moré.

This innocent question sent Yané’s mind reeling, until Lané added “You know, if you think about it, the swamps are where everyone’s going to be taking refuge.”

“That settles it. We are to fight against the Federation in any way we can-that’s our exact orders, and if there are other people in the swamp, we have to get them to fight with us, or protect them if they can’t. And now we have to get there before the Trade Federation does.”

It was hard not to start running. It was only natural to start taking wide strides and force Coté to jog to keep up with her. She paid no attention when she heard a pained squeak which sounded like Ené. When Losté protested with, “We have to slow down; Ené can’t go this fast,” she didn’t think before she whirled and snapped, “Did I not say we had no time?”

She was louder than she intended to be, but even so she was stunned by the way the other girls, when they saw Losté flinch-which was infuriating enough-fixed her with their coldest stares.

“Yané,” Coté’s face relaxed, she moved forward and took a hold of Yané’s elbow, “if we can’t do it, we can’t do it.”

She knew in an instant Coté was right, and she was filled with a strong sadness and quiet desperation. Two options occurred to her. Either they could keep going at whatever pace they could manage, or they could spilt up. Both seemed extremely unappealing. She wasn’t so sure why she was so loath to split them up; it certainly hadn’t bothered Saché. Perhaps because there’d been more of them to split up when Saché and Ardré, who were already the strongest two fighters, had been with them.

But though her instincts were screaming against it, Yané was already trying to decide who was going to stay behind with Ené, who come to think of it, probably shouldn’t be near any kind of battle zone at the moment. Where exactly Ené and her companion were going to go to Yané hadn’t quite worked out, but vague ideas were floating through her head.

So who was it to be? Yané ruled out Losté immediately; she was the best fighter left after her. Either Lané, Vatié, or Moré could do, though Moré would no doubt take it the wrong way. But Moré did have the medical knowledge, so perhaps she should stay with the wounded. Of course she needed Coté, and her mental powers, even if they sometimes didn’t work. Surely if there were a lot of people in the swamp they would have to set something off in her brain.

Unless whoever stayed with Ené might be able to keep track of Saché and Ardré, and aid them if they ran into distress. “Coté,” she asked, “do you think if Saché and Ardré got into trouble, you would be able to tell?”

Coté considered, then said, “It’s possible, but you can’t rely on it, especially if they’re some distance away.”

Yané came to her decision. “Stay with Ené. And try to see if you can keep yourselves near the river, but make sure you stay out of sight. Everyone else stay with me.”

They covered distance much faster, and Coté and Ené were left far behind when it occurred to Yané that when Coté had taken her elbow, it might not have been just her words that had done away with her temper. She made a mental note to have a talk with that girl when they were reunited.

#### Some time later, further along the river

Saché and Ardré were now crawling along the river bank, trying to examine the strangely-behaving water closely, to the point that they were fairly close to dark grey metal mechanism before Saché spied it and pulled herself up to train her blaster on it, Ardré following suit.

They both relaxed their arms a moment later, when it became the clear the mechanism was no more than just that, and could do them no immediate harm.

Still wary, they approached and examined the machine, but it seemed little more than a large cylinder, giving away no indication as to what it did. That it did something was likely, given the way it was humming.

The two girls walked around the cylinder twice before looking up at each other, and then Ardré asked, “What now?”

When they heard footsteps, Saché answered, “Hide!”

They dove into the brush nearby, but instead of seeing battle droids appear, they heard a splash, a good thirty meters to thirty-five meters from their hiding place. It was only over five minutes later when the battle droids finally appeared, and they were glancing about in clear confusion. Despite there being ten of them, Saché and Ardré quickly had them blasted apart before they could send off more than a handful of wide ineffective shots.

They were examining the droids to make sure they were all incapacitated when there was a loud splash almost right in front of them and a head emerged from the water, which both girls had their blasters fixed on before they realized it was Briné.

“Hi,” she gasped out, “take care of my droids for me?”

“Done,” replied Saché. “Where have you been?”

“With a bunch of civilians, being herded towards a prison camp of some sort. When we had trouble crossing the river I decided to break for it; there were only enough battle droids to keep the people in order so none could go after me from the crowd. I don’t know where those ten came from. But what have they done to this water?” To Briné swimming came as easily as walking, and she was treading water in an extremely aggressive current which Saché suspected would have swept any of the rest of them off. “It has to be that metal thing behind you; the current’s strongest here.”

“Whatever it is, it’s probably bad,” Saché decided, and she let loose her blaster on the cylinder. At once the river began audibly churning, and Briné, cursing, was carried downstream despite her best efforts, Saché and Ardré running after her. But she did not need their help; on her own she was able to grab on the bank, and kicking her legs sharp and hard she shoved herself onto solid ground. Ardré helped her to her feet, leveling a accusatory look at Saché as she did so.

Briné was much less bothered. “Maybe you should’ve waited until I was out of the river, huh? But let me at that thing.” And with that, she strode over the battle droids, scooped up one of their blasters, and fired at the cylinder until it exploded. “I hate things that interfere with the waters of Naboo,” she explained. Neither Saché nor Ardré were about to argue.

Instead Saché said, “Well, it’s a good thing you’re here, because Ené’s injured. We’ll go join the others in the swamp.”


	4. In the Swamp or Out of It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The handmaidens are ambushed by droids, and Yané is injured.

By the time they were ready to leave the path along the river, Briné’s hands were full of plants. Saché was very glad indeed to have found her.

Several times they stopped, until Saché was sure her ears were playing tricks on her on purpose. Perhaps all their ears were. But finally they all heard footsteps at once, but after a moment or so Briné whispered, “Those aren’t battle droids. They don’t sound like that.”

Saché was trying to think of anything hostile that wasn’t a battle droid when Ardré said, “Wait, it’s someone injured.”

Without asking how Ardré knew that, they hurried in the direction of the footsteps, and Saché’s suspicions were confirmed when she heard Coté’s voice say, “I hate to say it, Ené, but I don’t think Yané should have kept us together.”

“Kept you together?” Saché pushed her way past some trees and she and Coté took a look at each other. “What happened? Where are the others?”

“On their way to the swamp, which we think is inhabited. They left us behind for speed. They hoped I could keep track of them, but I’ve lost the others completely.”

“Never mind that,” replied Saché, “if we know where they’re going we can still follow them. Though Briné should take a look at Ené first.”

“Oh yes, thank you,” said Briné, pushing past the others. She sat Ené down and examined her.

“Can you fix it?” Coté asked.

“With only a few herbs, and I’m out of swamp country? No. But if someone will help me crush these, I can reduce the pain.” At these words, the relief on Ené’s face was visible.

Saché kept her dismay at the delay to herself. In fact, she wasn’t pleased with herself for feeling it. This was the only thing they either could or should do, and surely Yané and the others could take care of themselves if need be. Yet she could not shake a feeling that something was about to go terribly wrong with them.

Ardré helped Briné mash the herbs into a fine paste with a pair of rocks, and Briné carefully applied it to the burnt area. She then tore off a piece of her skirt and wound it around Ené’s head as a makeshift bandage. “Not the most effective or even most sanitary thing ever, but I imagine you’re feeling better, aren’t you Ené?”

“Yes,” breathed Ené. She smiled and looked at Saché. “I’m ready to do whatever you need of me.”

This made Saché feel a little better, but her vague uneasiness about their situation was continuing to grow.

She wasn’t the only one. As they got underway, Coté and Ardré found themselves bringing up the rear again, and Coté muttered to Ardré, “I have a bad feeling about this.”

“Why am I not surprised?” Ardré rejoined.

“I thought you’d lost all your mental abilities.”

She probably meant it in jest, yet Ardré was irritated. “I didn’t need them there. Couldn’t you tell?”

“No,” smirked Coté, though Ardré was quite certain she could. “Unreliable, remember?”

Ardré decided it was best to end this conversation, but after a short span of walking in silence, she found herself commenting out loud, “I’ve never heard of anything like that, though. Even younger Initiates are pretty predictable in what they can and cannot do.”

“That doesn’t surprise me,” Coté informed her.

“Knowledgeable, aren’t you?” inquired Ardré, trying to imitate the other’s tone.

“Not especially,” answered Coté, “but there are certain conclusions I can draw, from details about myself, which I’m afraid I’m still reluctant to share.”

“Coté, don’t tease me like that,” sighed Ardré. “If you don’t want to talk about yourself, then don’t go dropping hints.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t think,” said Coté, and she genuinely sounded sorry. But then she added, “I suppose you still think there is no ignorance.”

“We can’t help the way we’re raised,” said Ardré. After another pause, she added, “I don’t feel entirely right about this either.”

“Neither does Saché,” replied Coté, confirming what all three of the other girls had to be suspecting. Indeed, as if on cue, Saché turned back to them and asked, “Anything either of you two can sense I should know about?”

They shook their heads simultaneously. “Sorry,” Coté added unconvincingly.

Saché looked as if she wanted to punch Coté, but nobly refrained.

#### At the same time, some distance away

It was a good thing all of the handmaidens had spent so much time training in swampland. Yané didn’t think they were even at the official boundaries of the Small Swamp, and already the ground was more liquid than solid. This naturally hindered their progress somewhat, but Yané had other concerns on her mind now.

She had hoped to find traces of anyone or anything that had converged on the swamp, but the swamp was wide enough around that it didn’t happen. Nor did her ears pick up anything other than the normal sounds of the swamp, and the sound of Trade Federation ships patrolling overhead. At least those weren’t a worry for the moment. There was no way they could be spotted through the thick foliage. As for Saché and Ardré, and Coté and Ené, well, in all likelihood they would likewise keep themselves covered.

She hated them being separated like this. Briné too. Where was Briné, anyway? Was she even alive? Yané didn’t want to think about that idea. Well, there was no need to. Yet.

They were walking in complete silence now, nearly jumping when Vatié broke it by saying, “Swamp’s boundary, I think.” Then they were further on edge, and suddenly a speeder came crashing through the swamp out at them, piloted by battle droids.

Two seconds and Yané had the speeder’s pilots out, causing the vehicle to careen wildly, until Losté jumped up on it and had taken the wheel. Several seconds more and she had brought it to a halt.

Then there was a sound of beeping, and Losté hastily let go and backed off the speeder, waving her arms and yelling, “Back! Back! EVERYBODY BACK!!”

The speeder exploded, throwing Losté through the air, until she crashed into Lané and Moré, then Lané crashed into Vatié, then Vatié crashed into Yané and they all fell to the ground as Yané hit on the nature of the explosion. “It’s a trap. The swamp’s a trap.”

She saw their eyes travel over each other’s bodies to her. But before Yané could think of what to say next, there was the unmistakable sound of countless battle droid feet treading the ground all too near to them, and from all around, the sounds of blasters being readied, then a mechanical voice saying, “Get up.”

They obeyed slowly, untangling themselves from each other.  _If we had all ten of us here,_  Yané thought,  _we might stand a chance. But with this amount of droids..._ this was why they shouldn’t have separated.

“Hands up.” Yané obeyed. The others followed suit. But Yané could feel their eyes on her, accusing her. They were right to.

Their blasters were taken and they were prodded together by the battle droids, who then gestured them forward.

At first as they walked, Yané’s mind went blank with despair. She took no notice as they walked back the way they had come, reacting neither to her feet clumsily getting caught in the treacherous ground nor the droids prodding her back into movement. Occasionally someone fell forward, but whoever was next to her quickly grabbed her arms and steadied her. They did this without thinking, without feeling.

But then they cleared the trees near the river, and suddenly Yané realized the droids were tracing all of their trails, if they hadn’t already, and she knew she couldn’t just surrender without a fight. Not if it put Saché and Ardré and Coté and Ené in danger. She had to do something, and she had to do it now.

She tried to think of everything her father had ever told her about battle droids. The one thing she could remember was his insisting on their extreme stupidity. She'd have to try to use that.

She gave out a cry of "Oh!" and turned back towards the woods. As she’d hoped, the battle droids were distracted, but it wouldn’t be enough. Now came the risky part. She back up, then dashed between two battle droids, still staring back at the woods.  _Don’t shoot don’t shoot don’t shoot..._

The battle droids didn’t shoot. They all turned and stared at her. Then several of them hesitantly stepped forward.

_That’s right..._  Meanwhile, the other handmaidens seemed caught between staring at her and staring at the woods. And then she saw understanding cross Losté’s face, and she gasped, loud as she could, and stared in the same direction as Yané, then yelled, “Up there!” Everyone, droids included, looked up, and then on either side of her, Losté nudged Vatié and Moré. They looked at her in confusion for a second, then understood, and Vatié nudged Lané, and gestured to their skirts. With a rush of relief Yané realized the four of them all had extra weapons on them.

Five of the droids were down before the rest realized what was going on. Two more fell as Lané tossed her pistol to Yané, who took out the first two to have their guns properly trained.

Every single blaster turned to her. Shaking, Yané fired wildly, then fell as one of the blasts hit her, burning her hip, the pain so great it was all she could do not to black out. She was dead now; another blast was sure to finish her.

She could hear shouting as if from a distance, and strangely enough, it sounded like Saché, who was safe for the moment, but she had to keep the droids away from her, but it just hurt so much...

“Yané?” Was that Saché’s face in front of her?

“There are about thirty of them...” Yané tried to warn her.

“They’re all gone now. We blew them all to pieces.”

“Good,” she choked out, and everything went black.

#### Nearly an hour later, back in the woods

Reunited and safely out of sight, the first thing to do was to see to both Yané and Vatié, who had been shot in the arm. Under Briné’s direction, the handmaidens gathered plants to grind into a salve, and soon enough both wounds were covered and bandaged, but as Briné further examined Yané, she said to Saché, “I don’t like this particular injury at all. Those splish-rung droids took my med kit, but if there would be any way we could get our hands on even so much as a bacta pack...”

“I’ve been thinking about the speeder that exploded,” Losté commented to Saché. “It wasn’t thoroughly destroyed, though enough so that they left it where it was. I think we should go back there and see what we can find.”

But the speeder seemed unlikely to have any medical supplies, and so Saché put it out of her mind for the moment. Instead she was mentally traveling the surrounding area, trying to think where they could possibly...

“She may not last if we don’t get something for her,” Briné was warning her.

The only place Saché could think of was inside the city, if they could get into it. She decided they had to make some attempt, if Yané’s life was truly in danger.

That meant splitting up again. Only one, two people at most, could go into the city. Two, she decided.

It could not escape Saché that because of her history, and the large amounts of time she had been in Theed hospital, she herself was by far the one most suited for the job. Now that Yané was out of commission she could be accompanied by either Vatié, who aside from her and Yané had the best knowledge of Theed, or Ardré, who had an uncanny ability to be unnoticed. Did it come from the same place as her fighting skills? There had to be some sort of Jedi or Jedi-like training in her upbringing, definitely.

But Vatié might get distracted with the idea of rescuing her father, which was far too risky, and he seemed to not want them to try. There was her arm wound to consider too, especially because her marksmanship wasn’t her strongest point in the best of times. Ardré, then.

“How much can we move Yané about?” she asked Briné.

“Now that we’re here, I wouldn’t advise it.”

Her decision made, she said, “I’m taking Ardré back into Theed. They’ve probably finished evacuating the city by now, so we might be able to make it to the hospital and see what’s left there. The rest of you are to  _stay_ here.” One look around at them did away with any fear that they might so much as disagree. None of them wanted a repeat of what had recently happened.

Saché and Ardré left the others with them positioned in a circle around Briné, Yané, and Vatié, who Saché thought was still in some pain, though she seemed to be bearing it well enough. It was a short walk to the waterfall, which was still deserted. Neither spoke as they slipped into the secret passage, but both had their blasters out, and this time they had not even a feeble communicator light, but navigated the pitch black by memory alone, their ears straining for the slightest hint of droid feet.

There were none. The passage remained unknown to the invaders.

The museum basement was also deserted, but both girls knew they could not hope for that luck to hold out long. Stealthily they crept across the room and up the stairs, clutching at the walls, fingers itchy-until they came to the top of the stairs, and found the two droids Yané had shot still lying there, guns pointed at each other.

If the situation hadn’t still be so dangerous, Saché could have laughed.

They traced their way through the museum, following the line of battle droids they had shot down. It felt like walking through a tomb at first. But eventually, at last, they heard first a faint whirring sound, then the sound of clinking metallic feet, and finally a voice saying, “Trouble happened here. Rebels?”

“They carved quite a path if it was.” They were coming in their direction. Saché and Ardré flattened themselves against the walls as best they could, but even the battle droids would notice them after only a moment or so. Ardré didn’t look ready to flee yet, but she had to knew they were depending on there not being a whole army of them in the museum. It didn’t sound like it...

The two battle droids rounded the corner alone, and in another moment two blaster shots had blown their pieces back the way they had come until they slammed into the wall behind them.

“Run for it,” Saché barked, and both girls raced down the corridor, kicking aside droid parts which clattered against the walls and floors, ringing in their ears and making them run faster.

They burst out of the museum and into an empty street, which they dashed across and into the nearby alley, where they stopped to get their bearings. Much as Saché strained her ears, she could hear nothing but the sound of the STAPs above.

“The hospital’s five blocks over and three blocks up. With any luck we can get there undetected, but I’m not so sure about back.”

“I really think back’s going to be more of a problem than to,” said Ardré, and Saché, remembering how the older Jedi had proclaimed Sabé to be in danger based only off his feelings, and how readily she’d believe him, decided to keep the idea in mind.

This was the tensest situation yet, either way. Saché later thought the lack of any sound (except for those ever-cursed STAPs) just made it worse. That both she and Ardré had been trained to walk soundlessly only led her to wonder who else might be able to do so, even if those droids could be heard from across the city.

At the entrance to the hospital, they pressed their ears to the door, and heard nothing. “Those battle droids really are very loud on stone and metal,” said Ardré, “but does the hospital have carpeting?”

“Only on the upper floors,” answered Saché. "Most of what we need is downstairs.”

The problem was the elevators, Saché thought, as the doors opened on command. The hospital had a wonderfully complete elevator system, complete with most of the elevators carpeted, which was working against the two of them, as it allowed any battle droids on the upper floors to come down without warning.

In other ways, however, ways which under normal circumstances inconvenienced people, the design of the hospital was in their favor. It was made for all the storage compartments to be built seamlessly into the roundish shining silver walls, to the point where it wasn’t easy to tell where they were. During her multiple stays in the hospital, Saché had watched as the staff had shown all the interns and other newcomers how to access everything, and so she, unlike the Trade Federation, knew where almost everything was.

Time was short, so Saché, with Ardré guarding her back, went straight to the ward she’d been in when she was six. Her memory of it was very strong, because it was where she had learned that she was leaving her parents at last. It had been years since then, but sure enough, when she slid her nails into the subtle cracks in that old familiar wall, the drawers slid out over her hands, and the top one was full to the brim with bacta packs.

They stuffed them in the compartments in their undershirts and underskirts, and Saché also stuffed her hood. Into her hood, sleeves, and belt sash she also slipped many vials from the second drawer, and into the bend she tucked a hypospray and a pair of medical instruments from the third. She handed several more to Ardré, who tucked them into her own belt.

They carried several more packs each, wedged under their arms, as they left the hospital. Saché felt twice as heavy, and the going was much slower.

Much to her surprise, she and Ardré traveled the three blocks down without incident. Then they rounded the corner and came face to face with five rows of battle droids.

Both girls fired off two shots before diving behind the adjacent building. Then Ardré turned to Saché and said, “Saché, I think you need to run.”

When Saché failed to move, Ardré hissed at her, “Look, there’s no way you can fight your way past those droids. I don’t know if we could even manage it together. But I’m pretty sure I can hold them off long enough for you to escape. And those medical supplies have to get back to Briné. Yané’s life may very well depend on it, and others probably will later.”

She knew that Ardré was right. She also knew her stomach revolted at the idea of deliberately leaving one of her sister handmaidens behind to die.

Ardré was already pulling the most important medical instruments out of her sash. Dumbly Saché took them and tucked them into hers. “Saché, we have to hurry!” Ardré urged her. Saché jammed the rest of the instruments in, turned, and forced herself to run.

The bacta packs weighing her down felt heavier than ever. Her feet were working, pounding loudly on the pavement as the gunfire faded unnaturally fast, which meant her head had to be playing tricks on her. Something else was weighing down her legs, dragging her steps, making her feel nauseous and off-balance.

Completely on autopilot, she turned out of the final alley and ran towards the museum entrance. She dodged a wild streak of blaster fire, then turned and shot the two droids responsible before they could fire again. The distraction brought her back to herself; as she charged into the museum she took note of a new clanging sound from where the droid storage units probably were, but there was no time to worry about that at the moment. She kept on running, back through the hallway of strewn droid parts, past the pair with the blasters pointed at each other, down the stairs to the basement and into the secret passage.

Once the door was sealed behind her Saché allowed herself a moment to catch her breath. She could hear nothing behind her; she was probably safe.

One thing she hadn’t done yet was travel the secret passage alone. With her footsteps echoing against the narrow walls and down the stairs in front of her, Saché had to fight the impression that there was someone stalking her. Nearer to the bottom she briefly lost all sense and started running, then tripped and only by a movement with her foot that was half training and half sheer miracle did she avoid a tumble which might have damaged or even destroyed her fragile cargo. When she at last emerged into the sunlight, it was too relieving to even feel blinding.

She got back to the others, who looked at her, opened their mouths, and closed them again, unable, in the end, to quite find words for the loss, for all that it had been anticipated, for all that it was to be expected. There certainly were no recriminations spoken to their leader by the others. It was pain and punishment enough for Saché to see Coté lower her head and sink slowly to her knees, and Lané hastily wipe her eyes, while the others just looked around at each other.

Even Briné’s smile was weak when she saw Saché unload her cargo, and said, “You really went all out. This much I could probably make last a month.” It was their only consolation, so Saché took what comfort she could from it, and knew that the others were doing the same.

She wondered if she ought to offer any comfort to Coté, who clearly was taking the loss of Ardré harder than the others, but she was quick to realize that she truly had no idea how. She also took a look at Ené and Losté, who had also been close to their agemate, and saw Ené move to place her hands on Losté’s shoulder, and Losté brush them away before marching off-towards Saché herself.

“Have you considered what I said about the speeder?” It wasn’t just bringing them back to task either, Saché thought; they would fight in Ardré’s name now, so only wanted to resume all the sooner.

With that thought, she gave a quick consideration to the distance and said, “We’re going for it. You and me. Knowing Briné, she’ll make Ené stay here longer than I want to wait.” As she spoke, she was aware of the others’ attention focusing back on her.

She took a quick look around. Briné was carefully applying bacta to the wound in Yané’s side, Moré acting as her assistant, while Vatié and Ené waited nearby. Coté had pulled herself up and was dully staring at Saché, not quite recriminating, but close to it. Lané was watching her with concern.

“Keep everyone here again,” she said to Briné. Briné nodded absently.

“One minute,” she said to Losté after another moment’s consideration, who nodded and went to sit with Ené. Saché then met Coté’s eyes and beckoned her over.

Coté came sullenly. Saché kept eye contact with her, more to keep her own mind calm. When Coté was close enough, Saché said quietly, “Of course I’m leaving Briné in charge, but with three patients to see to, she’s a bit distracted, so you have to keep yourself focused. Understand?”

When Coté didn’t respond, Saché got angry. “Look, you have to know that losing Ardré was the last thing I wanted. Forget your psychic abilities; you should be able to figure that out without them. It was the only way for either of us to get out of Theed alive.”

“I’d assumed that.” The quiet pain in Coté’s voice felt to Saché like a slap in the face. For a moment she wondered exactly when Coté and Ardré had gotten this close anyway; she’s never seen any evidence of it. But ultimately it didn’t matter.

“Look, maybe you should talk to Ené or something,” she suggested. “It would probably be better for you to talk to her than to me. Or Lané.”

“I’ll do that. Thank you.” Coté clearly wanted the conversation over.

“You’ll keep a lookout, meanwhile?” Coté nodded very firmly, and Saché decided to trust her.

She went over to Briné to take a quick look at Yané. Briné didn’t look up, but said, “I’m almost done with her. She’ll still have scars; I’m not wasting bacta on that right now, but she can get rid of them when all this is over if she wants to.”

“When all this is over.” Saché somehow felt better hearing the reminder that it should be eventually. At the moment, she couldn’t think that far ahead.

“Time to go,” she said to Losté, who nodded, turned, and began walking back towards the Small Swamp. Saché followed.


	5. Powder Grenades

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The handmaidens retrieve some grenades, and embark on their first strike.

Saché found herself observing the ground as she followed Losté, teaching herself to differentiate human footprints from those produced by battle droids on harder ground. The footprints became easier to tell apart as they became more and more pronounced over time; the handmaidens had gotten very close to the swamp indeed.

They found the remains of the speeder scattered about the newly-formed clearing. Stepping lightly over the unidentifiable pieces of metal, Losté waved Saché back as she hovered over the contraption, trying to examine it without touching it. After a couple of minutes, she carefully reached down and ran her hand along the edge of the surface. Saché saw her smile as she hooked her fingers into something and a compartment sprang open.

"Untouched," she observed. "Did they want us alive, I wonder?"

"If they took us alive, they'd regret it," Saché answered.

"I think they'd change their minds. Hmmmm, powder explosives. I can see Yané turning up her nose now."

"Why?" Saché asked, drawing closer.

Losté looked up at her, but did not wave her back. "Powder weapons are generally thought to be a little...primitive, for lack of a better word. I know Yané's father won't even deal in them. They are genuinely messier, but then again, I don't think we'll be around when we detonate them. At least I genuinely hope we won't, Saché. I really wouldn't advise it. Yané would back me up here, and she would be right to."

"Hit and run, then," replied Saché. "I just hope they're sufficient for the droid facility in the museum. Anything else in this wreckage?"

Cautious again, Losté rose and examined the melted front of the speeder. "No," she then said.

Saché's hood had already been tearing; she now took a loose piece of metal and cut it away completely. As she watched her, Losté said, "There's one more thing you should know about these grenades, Saché."

"What?"

Losté was placing her hand back into the compartment. Then Saché saw her muscle visibly flex and strain even through her sleeve, and she grunted out, "They...are...very...heavy."

"Oh. Here, let me help." Saché knelt down next to her.

"Careful. These...things....need to be-*umph*!" She lifted one of them out and hastily whirled around to put onto the loose piece of cloth Saché had laid down. But even after she did this, she carefully adjusted tiny levers on the smooth grenade, observing as she did, "Tricky safeties. On purpose. We can use these, Saché, but it's not going to be easy."

Saché was now reaching into the compartment. She had taken note of where Losté had put her hands and imitated her grip. As she lifted it up, she felt her arm start to strain, and by the time she had the grenade clear of the speeder she was turning around to place it down as hastily as Losté had. "We can't carry all of these at once," she observed out loud. "One more, I think, but after that we take them back, then return with some of the others. How many of them do you think we need for the facility? Though perhaps if we could hide the others somewhere for later use..."

"I'll have to ask Coté about the facility, but at a guess, we'd need at least five. But you're right; the two of us can only carry four at once, and Briné'll probably insist on massaging our arms with bacta afterwards." She seized a third grenade and heaved it down onto the cloth. Saché did the same for a fourth; her arm felt like snapped elastic afterwards. She left Losté to manage the safeties on all four, since she obviously understood them.

They folded the cloth over the grenades and gripped the edges with their hands. "Carefully...on the count of three...one, two, three, li-ergh!"

Pulled by their combined strength, their makeshift bag shifted, then reluctantly rose. When it was high enough that Saché and Losté could walk more or less normally, they started trudging.

Already Saché had thought it a long walk. Now, she was ashamed to admit, she lost track of where they were going all together, aware only of following their footprints blindly while her arm ached and burned, and she struggled not to make a sound because there might be battle droids anywhere. With that came the terrifying thought that if they were found, they wouldn't be able to defend themselves.

She lost track of time too, but was suddenly aware of it being late in the afternoon when the level of trees began to thin. She forced herself back to awareness and whispered, "Come on, Losté, we're almost there."

Then at last they came in sight of the others, and the pain fled Saché's arm completely when, on looking them over, she saw, sitting by Briné, a very bandaged but alive Ardré.

She heard Losté exclaim her name delightedly; she too had seen her. Together they tumbled forward, their burden swaying and the grenades nearly falling out. Coté, Lané, and Ené all hurried over to take it from them. Aside from the bandage covering much of her jawline, Ené looked good as new.

Rubbing her arms with relief, Saché and Losté both race over to Ardré, and the latter tried to hug her, but drew back as the injured handmaiden winced. "What happened?" she asked before Saché could.

Ardré addressed her answer to Saché. "I drew the droids into one of the buildings and was able to pick most of them off. It took me a bit of time after that to get out of Theed, but on the way out I was able to steal a diagram. Yané's got it right now."

Yané was awake, and carefully reclined on her uninjured side with a bacta pack strapped to her hip. She had a datapad in front of her which she now looked up from as Saché approached her. "It's all here," she said. "Ené and I have been trying to decide where best to plant the explosives. We'll need at least five, and I'd much rather do it with six."

"We have four grenades here, and there are more back where we got them from, but, as you can see," she glanced back at where Lané and Ené had lugged the bundle over and were carefully placing it down under Losté supervision, "we weren't able to carry them all at once."

"Sounds like heavy frag grenades," Yané commented. "Let me have a look at them. If they're what I think they are, we're going to need six."

Coté brought one over for her to examine. Yané peered at them, muttering to herself, "Double-split, heavy mass-oh swamp take it, powder?" The disgust on her face was clear. "Well, we could probably do the job with five of them after all, but this is going to be a very messy business."

Meanwhile Briné was applying a thin streak of bacta to Saché's arm. The relief it brought could not be expressed in words. "The condition you're all in," she said, "it should probably wait until tomorrow morning."

"Will Yané and Ardré be recovered then?" Saché asked her.

"Should be."

"Very well, then. As soon as we can easily see where we're going. We just have to get the other grenades."

"I would suggest," Briné replied, "that you and Losté not go again. And send enough of us to carry one grenade each."

"That can easily be done," Losté noted, "there were only four more in the speeder."

####  **That night**

The handmaidens were to sleep in shifts. Ardré, still in mild pain, and one of those people unable to sleep when suffering from any pain however mild, volunteered to take the first watch, and Coté offered to take it with her.

All the others had dropped off by the time twilight had passed, leaving Ardré to pass restlessly amoung them, unable to stay still unless her body quite literally forced her to. Coté, on the other hand, sat pressed up against a tree and watched her pace.

"Why do you need to watch me?" Ardré finally snapped at her. "Shouldn't you be keeping a lookout?"

She was surprised by how hard Coté flinched, and hastily started, "I'm sorry..."

"Don't be. I should know better than to behave this way."

Ardré decided she didn't like to hear Coté putting herself down like this. "Your behavior is not entirely in your control; that much is clear. Not just in relation to your abilities either, but overall."

"So you noticed." Her voice was very harsh, an automatic defense mechanism.

"What is it?" Ardré had, during her days as an Initiate, tutored a younger girl, one more successful than her, and she now tried to adopt the same gentle tone of voice she had used while talking to her. "What happened to you?"

"Well," Coté started, "it's just that today..." she drifted off. Even this sounded hard for her to put into words, and it hadn't even been what Ardré was asking about.

"This isn't just something that happened today. You said yourself you have some idea of why you are the way you are, but why are you refusing help?"

"Maybe I don't need it."

"So you would rather lack control over your own behavior?"

"I...." But before Coté could come up with another protest, they heard a sigh from where Moré slept, and they both turned to see her open her eyes. "Morning?" she asked softly.

"If it was morning there'd be a problem. I'm supposed to wake you up in two hours."

"Oh, great." She curled back up and closed her eyes, then shook her head and pulled herself up. It was clear she did not expect to get able to get back to sleep in time.

"What woke you?" asked Coté.

"Nothing in particular, I think. I just have trouble sleeping sometimes." She gazed around the clearing and they saw how her eyes lingered on Briné. "Especially lately, since the blockade began."

"All of us have, I think," replied Ardré. "Though I wonder...a couple of weeks ago, I woke up and heard some footsteps outside, and I remember seeing your bed was empty." She, Moré, Losté, and Ené all shared sleeping quarters within the palace.

"Oh!" Moré blushed. "That actually might not have been me. That might have been Briné."

"Briné?"

"Yes, she...I'm not sure if I should be telling you this."

"Then maybe you shouldn't," said Ardré.

But Coté seemed to spend a moment looking at Moré, or maybe through her, before saying, "Are you just embarrassed?"

"No, it's not just that," she said, though she was blushing again. "Briné was meeting with Captain Panaka over something-and don't ask me what because I don't know-and she didn't...she didn't..."

"Want us knowing," Coté finished for her. "Are you feeling as guilty as you are because you didn't tell us, or because you're telling us now?"

Moré started violently at the question, and Ardré suggested, "Coté, from now on, if you're going to mention our feelings, why not tell us that you've sensed them first? Just so we're a little bit more prepared?"

Moré had recovered, and she now answered, "Both, I think. But my point is that she was afraid you would wake up, Coté-she told me you often did, in the middle of the night-so she asked me to sleep in her bed so it would look like she was still in it." She was blushing more than ever.

"If I'd woken up," Coté noted, "you wouldn't have fooled me. I *probably* would have sensed that it was you and not Briné."

"How could she have known that? You hadn't even admitted to us that you were anything out of the ordinary at that point in time, had you?"

This sounded, to Ardré, like a perfectly good thing to point out, but it somehow offended Coté, and she said, "Most of us hadn't said much about ourselves. I know you hadn't!"

She got so loud on the last part that both of the other two made shushing noises. She grimaced at them, her fists clenched, and for a moment Ardré was frightened she would completely forget the situation and shout, or worse, but just then Briné awoke and leapt to her feet, glancing around. She did so silently enough so as not to wake anyone else, but all three of the handmaidens already awake turned their attention to her. She saw them, saw the others asleep, then shook her head angrily.

"Is it time for her shift yet?" she asked. When all three shook their heads, she continued, "Then why is she awake? Come, Moré." She slung and arm around Moré and encouraged her to lie back down. Moré made no protest; she was limp and weak-eyed. Suddenly Ardré was angry.

"Briné," she asked quietly when Moré had closed her eyes and was now going to try to sleep, even if she wasn't sure she could. "Could you come with me for a moment? You'll keep watch, won't you, Coté? We won't be long."

Coté nodded, and Ardré suspected she could sense the anger and even figure out the cause of it. Let her, she thought; she could deal with it.

"I've done all I can for you," Briné started, when they were far enough away from the others to whisper without being heard.

"It's not that," said Ardré. "It's Moré. Oh, it's strange that I'm the one telling you this..."

"What?" Briné looked very anxious at the mention of her young assistant. "Is there anything the matter with her? Something she just told you and Coté?"

"It's nothing she told us, but quite frankly, it's something you should have noticed for yourself. Haven't you seen how she looks at you?"

"Well, yes, her hero worship of me is a little enthusiastic, but I'm sure it won't be as strong as it is right now in a little while."

"You think it's just hero-worship? Briné, you know-"

But Ardré never finished her sentence, because at that moment there was a buzzing sound and both girls turned towards it with their blasters drawn.

Nothing appeared, and the buzzing sound grew no louder. They looked at each other. Briné said, "We need to wake Saché."

When they got back to the clearing, Moré was sitting up, and the buzzing had woken Saché already, as well as Losté and Ené.

"What's that?" Saché asked softly. "Did you see anything?"

"Didn't see anything," answered Briné. She glanced over at Yané, whom she had sedated at the beginning of the evening. "I don't know if she'd be able to identify it. It sounded pretty generic."

"Don't assume she can't. Wake her up."

Briné didn't look happy at all as she prepared her hypospray with something and injected Yané. She then clamped her hand over the other girl's mouth. The explanation for why came when Yané groaned herself awake, shuddering. When she'd gone still again Briné removed her hand.

It took another moment for comprehension to set in, then she was pulling herself to her feet. "Searcher droids," she said.

"Those are what those are?" Saché asked. "What can you tell us about them?"

"They're very bad, especially in the dark. Have they been any closer than this?"

Ardré and Briné listened for a moment, then Ardré said, "No. They haven't."

"Good. But the problem with those searcher droids is they're designed for quick image gathering and transmission. Once you've seen them it's too late; they've sent an image of you and a note of your location back to their owners. We need to keep lights on and our eyes and ears peeled, and if we think one of them even might have spotted us, we should shoot it down if we can, and we won't be able to stay here."

After that noone could get back to sleep. Those who were still asleep slept on, but the others all ended up sitting with their blasters in their hands. Even after the buzzing sound could no longer be heard, having, according to Yané, never gotten close enough to be of any danger, they maintained their anxious wait.

Until Lané woke up unexpectedly and looked around at them. "What's going on?" she asked, very softly indeed, and her voice wasn't that loud even at normal volume.

"Our turn to watch," Saché decided out loud. "Everyone else try to get to some sleep. That's an order."

####  **Very Early the Next Morning**

Saché woke Briné first; she had been the only one of the handmaidens besides Vatié to get a decent amount of sleep the previous night. She had her examine all three of her more seriously injured patients, waking them up in the process. Vatié was fully healed; Briné removed her bandages and she flexed her newly scarred arm and smiled; clearly no pain. But while she removed Yané's bandages and was able to leave some of them unreplaced, Saché saw the ugly wounds and burns that were left for Briné to re-bandage, and her own look of dismay.

Yané saw it and asked, "Will I be able to fight?"

"Not very well," answered Briné, "though the kind of fighting we do against battle droids might not be that hard. But you'd have to hope we don't run into anything more mobile!"

"That'll have to do, I think," said Saché; they needed Yané on this one.

She'd kind of hoped that whatever these abilities Ardré had were, they included something to make her heal faster, especially since she'd heard about Jedi having something like that. But it seemed not; Briné's reaction to her was the same as her reaction to Yané. "You really did get battered up yesterday," she commented to her.

"I don't feel any pain right now," Ardré observed.

"You'll feel it again before the day is out, probably," was Briné's response. To Saché she said, "She too can fight, technically. But I don't think it helps matters that none of us have had anything to eat for nearly eighteen hours. I would in fact advise against them charging any droid facilities today, but..." As she drifted off, both Yané and Ardré's faces finished the statement for her.

"We're waking the others up now," said Saché. "Yané, do you think there's anything you could shoot down?"

"Give me one of the proper pistols and I can try."

It was yet another thing Saché hadn't thought of, maybe nobody had thought of. It was the second day of their little war and she was not at all happy with how she was doing as leader. She still had no idea what they were going to do for drinking water, and it was also nagging at her that the previous night, Briné and Ardré had gone off by themselves, and they probably shouldn't have, because they'd put themselves in more danger. She didn't know why'd they been so stupid as to do such a thing, but since they had, it now fell to her to somehow stop them from doing so again.

When everyone was awake, Yané shot down four birds. Then Ené stopped her, saying, "After those blasts, you're not going to be able to get any more for the next few hours."

Briné butchered the birds with Losté's aid. The others all tried to distract themselves, examining their weapons or scanning the surrounding woods. Together the two of them divided the meat as best they could into ten equal parts, showing there to be pitifully little for each handmaiden. But Yané managed to somehow cook them with a blaster on the lowest setting and they all ate. There seemed to be no taste, which to Saché was a relief.

"We'll take all the grenades to the waterfall," Saché declared, "and hide the ones we aren't using in the secret passage."

Everyone picked up a single grenade except for Yané and Ardré. After helping to carry four of them the previous day, Saché found one to be surprisingly little trouble.

The trip to the waterfall was, thankfully, uneventful. When they slid open the entrance to the secret passage, Saché surveyed its width, then said, "Lay three of them along the far side of the passage, right next to the entrance. When we exit, one of us will open the door from the other end first, so we make sure not the step on them."

Armed only with five grenades now, but still weighed down a little, they crept through the passageway with Saché in the lead, Yané and Losté right behind. Saché could hear them talking quietly to each other. About halfway through the passage Yané joined her in the front and whispered, "We're going to have to set all five as close together possible, but even so, if we can blend them in, we should put at least twenty minutes on the timers."

"Gotcha," Saché replied. "Does anyone besides you and Losté know how to set them?"

"I don't know, but that isn't that hard to do."

Noone spoke after that until they were once again in the museum basement. The clanging from the previous day had stopped. Saché repeated what Yané had told her and asked, "Does anyone else here already know how to set these grenades?"

"I do," said Ené, and Coté said, "I do too."

"It really isn't that hard," said Yané. "The real trick is dislodging the safety, and one of the four of us could do that to the fifth without setting it. Once that's done, all you do is enter the time in-that button for increments in 10 seconds," she pointed to a tiny button on the grenade, "though why anyone would so foolish to give themselves only ten seconds I don't know, and that screen lights up and shows you the countdown," she pointed to a tiny indentation Saché hadn't even realized was a screen, then at more buttons, "that one adds 30 seconds, that one a minute, that one 5 minutes, and that one ten minutes. When it's set you pull the switch," she pointed. "To stop the countdown you pull it back. I'll dislodge the safety on this one."

"I think it would be a better idea to do that in facility itself," noted Coté.

"You're right," said Saché. "At the facility we'll split into pairs. One person sets the grenade, the other person guards."

By the time they'd reached the top of the stairs, where the two droids had at last been cleared, they'd managed to pair off. Yané pulled out the diagram of the droid facility. "The facility is divided into three sections, along the three big sections of the museum, and they meet in the middle here. That will be the location for one of the grenades, inside the opening section-that one needs to be very precise; I'll place it. Another one will be set in here," she gestured to one of the sections. "This one's the longest to get to; we have to go around through both the other two. We put the grenade dead in the middle; under the structure in the diagram. But this section, the second one, is where most of the machinery was installed, and we'll have two grenades in there. The first will be put within the structure of this contraption," she pointed to a very strange shape indeed, "Losté will do that one. The other one will be place on the other side of the section, over here, by this." Where she pointed wasn't quite the other side, but it was easy to locate. "And the last grenade, which I think should be the one I take the safeties off of first, will be put very near the entrance of the first section, by the main computer."

"I will do that one," said Saché.

Things grew tenser with each step down the corridor. Saché wished she didn't need both hands to hold the grenade; if battle droids suddenly burst into the corridor they'd be helpless. When they reached the end, Yané said, "I'll go in first. There weren't any notes in the diagram about guards; I think they're just at the museum's entrance. But we should be sure."

Saché nodded, and Yané moved through the door and out of sight. There was a minutes or so of silence, then the sound of a blaster firing. Another minute and Yané returned. "There was a droid guarding the motor," she explained.

Inside the museum was barely recognizable. The walls and floors were still there, but the tables and shelves were gone, and in their place-how had they put it all in so quick? So much machinery, battle droids assembled and hanging limp, and even as Yané took the grenade from Saché and began working on the safety the terrific clanging from yesterday started up again, casung several of the handmaidens to jump. "Don't worry about that," Yané told them. "It's supposed to do that every few hours." She handed the grenade back to Saché. "I would suggest that Coté set the second grenade in the second section, and Ené the one in the last section."

"Set the time to twenty minutes," Saché added, "And when you're done, call out. Flip the switch when you hear me yell."

Coté, Ardré, Ené, Vatié, Losté, and Moré all moved off as Yané and Briné went to the far side of the room, where the wall was covered with ugly twisted wire.

Lané guarding her, Saché set the grenade down in the shadow of the main computer and pressed the ten minute button twice. The screen Yané had pointed out earlier lit up, and the display indicated the twenty minutes entered. "Done," she called.

Yané hadn't even placed hers yet; she was staring at those wires. "What are you doing?" Saché snapped at her.

"These grenades are so lousy," Yané answered, "that I really don't want to be off."

"Off of what?" She tried to conceal her impatience, without much success.

"The power cell! It's embedded in this wall, but the wall's been reinforced, and if I don't get the center of the grenade in front of it it might survive. So the wires go in here, and here," her fingers lingered over two spots on the wall.

After another few moments she put the grenade down very carefully and precisely, and set to work on the safety. "Don't roll," Saché could hear her whisper. "Don't roll, don't roll, don't roll..." She was still working on it when they heard first Coté then Ené call out, "Done!" and Losté called half a minute later.

Saché was in the process of walking across the room and to stare over Yané's shoulder when Yané finally pressed in the time, grinned at Saché over her shoulder, and called, "Done!"

Saché returned to her grenade and placed her hand on the switch. "Everyone!" She yelled. "On the count of three...one....two....three!" She pulled her switch back. There was a click, and then a beep, and the screen started counting down. She couldn't help but think of the creepiness of it.

Then, from the door, she heard Lané's quiet, "Uh oh."


	6. As It Must Crash

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The handmaidens suffer a casualty.

"Someone heard us?" Saché's voice dropped down to a whisper.  _The grenades can be stopped,_  she reminded herself.  _We can hold out here if we need to._

"No," Lané whispered back, "but a bunch of battle droids have entered the museum and gone down the corridor. They're patrolling back and forth...I don't think they're leaving....there are more coming."

The others had come in in time to hear her. "There's a window in the third section," whispered Ené.

Saché nodded. The group tiptoed through the first two sections, Saché taking note of the grenades passing the 19 minute mark, and reached the third. The window was big enough to crawl through, but to get to it they would have to climb up an active construction unit, which appeared to be assembling the droids' feet.

Saché put her hands on it and found it wasn't too hard to hoist herself up. She peered out the window. "All clear. I'll jump down and help everyone out. Moré first."

She landed easily on the pavement outside of the museum, and looked around. There was enough time to escape on foot, but she didn't want to stay in Theed. Then she turned to received Moré as the latter jumped down, helped by Ardré, who came down after her, then turned to receive Ené. As the two older girls both helped Losté down, Saché considered the two ends of the street.

"Yané's run to lock the door!" Her attention was pulled back by Vatié's news as she came down. "She's worried about the battle droids coming in and finding the grenades before they've gone off!"

"She's not back in here yet!" Coté added as she followed Vatié.

"It's okay." Briné was coming out. "She's running in now."

Indeed, only a few seconds after Briné hit the ground Yané appeared in the window, and everyone helped her down. Saché grabbed her arm, and said, "Don't do that again." But there was no time to elaborate. "Everyone down this way." She led them to their right, towards the outskirts of the city.

After three blocks, she found what she was looking for: the vehicles. Guarded by battle droids, they loomed teasingly in reach. There was an open-air speeder, just big enough to hold them all, at their end. The question was if they could get to it, get into it, and get away in it, without being shot down.

When the Neimodian first appeared, Saché thought they were dead. But as the battle droids turned their attention to him, Saché whispered to Yané, "What's the depth of that small speeder? Would be we able to squat in it?"

"Think so." Yané didn't sound at all sure, but it was their only chance.

Saché waited until several droids had walked up to the Neimodian, then whispered, "Don't shoot, just....run!"

They ran. When they reached the speeder they kicked at the battle droids' legs and knocked them down, then leapt in as the other droids turned around.

"Stop them! Stop them!" She heard the Neimodian yell. "Shoot the-"

She hadn't even realized she'd aimed and fired at him until he fell, unmistakably dead. There was no time to think even then; the battle droids had opened fire, and as Losté started the craft the others desperately tried to cover her.

"As soon as we're clear of Theed I'm going to kick us up to maximum speed," Losté was saying, "so everybody hold-ahh!" Though thanks to the other handmaidens' cover fire they had been unable to get at her head, the battle droids had shot Losté's hands, and she recoiled, clutching at them. Ené took her place, crouching over the controls as she worked them. They were gaining speed now, a few moments more...

She heard Briné cry out "No!" and a sickening thudding sound.  _No,_  Saché thought frantically,  _don't let her have just been killed. Don't let anybody have just been killed, but especially not her!_

"We're clear of Theed!" Ené yelled and next thing Saché knew she was flattened against the side of the speeder, her face smushed into the metal, as they accelerated. Several moments passed as she was unaware of anything else around her. Then the speeder started to slow down a little and she pulled herself up and looked around.

Theed was nowhere in sight. They were skirting the side of woods Saché didn't recognize, going over grassy fields. Taking this speeder into the woods probably wasn't practical, she quickly realized; it was a little too big for that.

Now came the hard part. She had to look and see if what she had heard was Briné's death.

The first thing she saw was Briné, uninjured, leaning over Losté and seeing to her hands. For a moment Saché felt sweet relief, but then she realized that Briné was working alone. And then she saw, next to Losté, Vatié determinedly looking at them, and not looking at the middle of the speeder, and Ardré, face grim and tired, staring blankly in the direction Vatié was looking away from.

From the other side of the speeder she heard Yané say quietly, "Saché....please look."

Saché looked, and saw Moré lying in the middle of the speeder where she had fallen with a blaster wound having burst her neck open. She saw Lané leaning over her, trying to close her mouth; she'd probably closed her eyes too. Saché doubted Briné had even needed to examine her.

#### Early That Afternoon

Saché wouldn't have gone to the Handmaidens' Graveyard, because it was where they might be expected to go to, but for the knowledge that it had a freshwater fountain. They could only hope the water was still running.

By the time they approached, they had prepared Moré's body as best they could. They'd cleaned and covered her neck, tied her hair back, and smoothed out her dress. But now that they were closing in on their destination, all eyes were on the lookout and each handmaiden had her blaster ready.

"Can you sense anything?" Saché asked Coté. "I know you usually can't sense battle droids..."

"Nothing," Coté replied. "Though I think when we killed that Neimodian and Moré was killed less than a minute afterwards it sort of shut me down there anyway. I kind of  _felt_  him die..." She looked a little haunted. "And then my head sort of blinked out and I haven't been able to feel a thing since."

 _When_ I _killed that Neimodian, you mean,_  Saché thought. She still hadn't reacted to the fact that she had killed a sentient being. At the moment, she wasn't sure she could afford to.

They touched the speeder down some distance from the graveyard and snuck closer on foot. Several times a rustle in the bushes or tiny footsteps on the grass made one or more of the girls jump up and train her gun on an animal. Then when they were creeping down the walls of the Outer Graveyard there was a unexpected tap, and Saché turned and fired her blaster and blew a hole in the grey stone. From the other side a spiked krevol scurried over the top and away.  _At least I didn't hurt the poor thing,_  she thought, but she had turned crazy in front of the other handmaidens, which was very bad, and she wasn't even sure why she'd done so.

In the silence that followed, Lané said softly, "If there's anything in that graveyard, we'll know within the next five minutes or so."

Noone said anything after that. Saché knew it was smarter to have complete silence, but she hated it at this moment, because with everyone looking at her she couldn't escape the question of what they were thinking about what had just happened. Were they worrying for her sanity? Would they hesitate to keep following her?

When they heard no footsteps and no voices, Saché said, "I don't think anyone's there yet, but we'll look in both graveyards and the shrine to make sure. Then we get Moré's body into the freezer, fill up on water, and get out of here. Everyone stay together."

They fell in behind her. They followed her through the gate and all of them gazed upon the empty graveyard where they all hoped to be buried someday. They walked the length of the Outer Graveyard, past the graves of over three centuries of women who had served in their station before them, most of the older ones for all of their days, for it was only about a century ago that their mistresses' positions had stopped being usually for life. When they came around to the gate again having neither seen anyone nor been shot at, they filed into the Inner Graveyard. This was a much smaller plot of land and the graves here were sparse, for the Inner Graveyard was reserved for those who had died in direct service to their mistress. Here Moré would be buried, when there was time to bury her.

The shrine was attached to the outer wall of the Inner Graveyard and was accessible from both the front and the back. Inside they turned on the lights and stood in the empty vestibule. On the walls were written the names of those handmaidens whose deaths had left behind no body. A few objects dedicated to the memory of one or more of the women hung from the walls or were displayed on two stone tables which stood by either wall.

The last place to check was the cellar. Here were kept various odds and ends: a databank containing information on over a thousand year's worth of handmaidens, an interactive map of the graveyard showing where all individuals were buried, and at the far end, a walk-in freezer.

"Briné, Ardré, go back to the speeder and get Moré's body," Saché commanded, "and bring it back here as quickly as you can. The rest of us will go out to the fountain and fill the containers."

The fountain was in the Outer Graveyard, right outside the shrine entrance. Briné and Ardré accompanied the others out and watched them kneel by the fountain to drink and fill the makeshift containers they'd created by welding together loose pieces of metal. They themselves walked on and out of the graveyard.

Outside, aware of the danger, both kept a lookout and did not talk to each other. But when they were climbing into the speeder, Briné said, "Let me just say, Ardré, that I already knew what you were talking about last night, about how Moré felt about me. I spoke honestly to her on the matter back when we were all still in training. She didn't want me to alter her behavior around her, so I didn't."

"And she made it harder for herself that way," noted Ardré. "Poor girl. I think she was a lot more stubborn than she was happy, if you know what I mean."

"I do, and she was. But what could I do? She was of age. I had to respect certain wishes of hers." She was reminding herself of this as much as reminding Ardré of it. Ardré, meanwhile, had scooped Moré up into her arms and was descending out of the speeder, without making any further comments. There was really nothing, now, that she thought could be said. Besides, it was a good idea for them to resume their earlier stealth.

They returned to the graveyard, and to the fountain, where the others were done. "I'll take her inside," said Saché. "You two drink. As soon as I come back we're heading back to the speeder; it's too dangerous to stay here much longer."

The fountain water was brackish and heavy, but it felt good going down. Both girls drank more than they probably should have, and Coté stopped them both by placing her hands on Ardré's shoulders and saying, "That's enough. We don't want to have to stop the speeder less than an hour into our flight so you two can relieve yourselves, right?"

“Right,” Ardré agreed, as Saché emerged from the shrine.

They were halfway to the graveyard gate when the sound of buzzing again filled the air. “If we run into those searcher droids,” Saché sighed, “is there anything we can do?”

“Shoot them down and run for it,” said Yané. “It’s a good thing we’ve got that speeder now. Though I’m not sure they can’t track that, but I think that’s a chance we’re going to have to take. And remember, the droids usually travel in twos.”

“Losté, Ené, blasters ready.”

“We’ve all got our blasters ready,” Coté reminded her, not at all gently.

When they reached the gate, the buzzing was so loud they all knew immediately, the searcher droids had to be on the other side.

Was there any other way out of the graveyard? Saché didn’t know of any. She looked at the faces of her companions, half-hoping that one of them might. But there was no reason any of them should, and so noone offered one.

Before Saché could think of another course of action the air above them screamed and from the top of the wall the two droids came charging down. They were two disc-like things as large as the handmaiden’s heads, they vibrated violently, and the buzzing sound was nearly deafening.

“Shoot! Shoot!” Saché yelled, and a moment later she realized she could shoot herself. Several blasts joined hers, half of them hitting the graveyard wall, but the two droids fell at their feet, still buzzing faintly.

“We should leave them there,” said Yané, “and get out of here as quickly as possible.”

As one the handmaidens ran out of the graveyard towards the speeder. There seemed to the feeling that somehow a whole battalion of battle droids was already closing in on their location, and it was only by running as fast they could that they could hope to get out alive.

“Once we’ve put some distance between ourselves and here we’ll abandon the speeder and take cover,” said Saché. “They know we’ve taken it and they’re bound to look for it.”

“How are we to hide it, then?” asked Ené. “Because once they find it they’ll have to know we’re nearby.”

This gave Saché long enough pause that she was silent until after their transport had picked up speed and the graveyard was out of sight. Then she said, “We'll find a place somewhere, then proceed on foot.”

She thought she heard someone mutter something. Angrily she glared over the others, demanding, “Who said that?”

They looked at each other in bewilderment. For one crazy moment Saché thought they were keeping the culprit from her, but then she realized they couldn’t have any more idea than she did, if indeed she hadn’t just imagined it somehow. “Never mind,” she said impatiently. “Does anyone know this part of the planet?”

“What part of the planet are we on?” asked Coté. “We’re traveling so fast I can’t tell!”

“I know where we are,” said Losté, “and we’re traveling towards the area where I grew up; I know it inside and out.”

“Are you mad?” demanded Vatié. “They’ll know to look for us there!”

“Not necessarily,” replied Lané. “Remember, they keep us as low profile with as little information as possible. The Trade Federation might not even know all our names, and I doubt they have any idea who are families are, where we come from...perhaps if they do some research with the right names they could track down me, and Vatié would be pretty obvious, but as I said, they might not even have sufficient records for that. They won’t have any notion of who exactly Losté is, even if they have her name.”

“Good,” said Saché. “Get us there as quickly as you can. How far away is it?”

“About an hour, I think.”

#### About an Hour Later

Slowly the landscape had changed; the forests had thinned and given way to plains, then the plains to swamps, then the swamps to plains again. Whenever they passed any towns or other structures Losté almost always kicked up speed, but occasionally she didn’t. “I’m not taking a direct route,” she had explained to Saché. “Going to try to confuse them a little.”

Finally she brought them down into a small thicket of broadbush, which closed in tightly around them and pressed the dark fronds into the handmaidens’ hair and against their cheeks. As Losté settled the vehicle to the ground and cut power, they felt the metal around them cease to vibrate and sink into the soft soil. Then the lights cut out and the thicket was plunged into darkness.

There were several very softly-spoken curses and then Vatié’s communicator clicked on.

“How much power is left in there?” Saché asked her.

Vatié checked the readout. “About 35 hours worth, I think.”

“Well, now that Briné has gotten the speeder door open, I think we should conserve. Turn it off.”

The light clicked itself off. In the dark the group pushed their way into each other and out of the speeder. Saché elbowed her way to the front of the group and was the first to emerge into the sunlight. She felt several bodies pressing into her back and heard Yané’s voice near her ear asking, “What’s the plan now?”

Then she heard Losté’s response near her other ear: “There’s store houses near here. If we don’t eat soon, we’re going to have serious trouble.”

Saché opened her mouth to object, because surely the store houses were guarded at least, and possibly raided and cleared of their contents as well, but her stomach audibly growled, and she instead asked, “How far?”

“Half an hour’s walk.”

“All in the open,” Briné observed.

“Not quite,” said Losté. “There are other structures closer to here-small, wooden, structures. There’s a chance the Federation hasn’t bothered too much with them. We can try breaking from building to building a large part of the way.”

This may have been the most frightening thing they’d done so far. Handmaidens were trained to stay hidden and unnoticed, and on running from the thicket, Losté taking the lead ahead of Saché, they felt the open sky above them, the lack of anything to hide behind. They bolted to rocks and trees that seemed far too small. The slightest sound made them all jump. After the first time noone dared even comment on that. But the need for speed was essential; they needed to get to cover before a STAP ship flew over.

By the time they reached a ditch ten minutes later they all bolted to it and burrowed in with relief, shoved up against each other until it was hard to breath. Beyond it they could see a wooden barn, and another wooden building a little beyond that. “Wait here for a few minutes,” Saché ordered. “We’ll wait until one of the monitor ships has passed.”

“Actually,” said Losté cautiously, “I think it would be much smarter to start going through the buildings. It would give us more time after it’s passed; there’s more open land to cover after this.”

“And so we’ll learn if the droids have taken over them or not,” Saché grumbled, but she couldn’t deny Losté’s point. “Let me take another look. Let me through.” Brutally she shoved the other handmaidens aside, ignoring an angry, “Hey!” in her effort to get the best view over the other side of the ditch.

Losté was alongside her. “There are two barns within sight,” she said, “and beyond them it’s a short trip to the keeper’s cabin, then the threshing room. After that there’s more walking in the open, but there’s wood around the heavy-duty storage.”

Saché strained her ears for the sound of anything mechanical that might be in the area. “Doesn’t sound like there are any droids in the barn, at least; I think that’s within hearing range. Briné? Can you hear anything?” It was generally believe among the handmaidens that Briné had the best ears.

“Nothing,” said Briné. “That first barn, at least, is safe.”

Saché took a deep breath. “All right,” she said, “Break for it!”

The handmaidens leapt, tripping and falling and bumping over each other in their haste. Saché had to pull herself up twice before she stumbled in with the others into the deserted barn. They bumped into then collapsed again wooden crates, feeling their way around in the darkness, their relief not needing to be spoken of. “What’s in here?” Saché asked, panting.

“Flax and weeds,” gasped Losté. “Nothing of use to us, unfortunately.”

“How far is it to the next house?” asked Lané.

“Very short. But there’s a larger distance between the keeper’s cabin and the threshing room.” For several more moments, everyone continued to catch their breath. Then Losté said, “We came in through the back door. The front door is somewhere around...” She jostled her way through the other handmaidens, finally bumping Yané into the front door hard enough that it swung open, revealing a stone pathway. “That leads the animal barn and the cabin.” Losté explained.

“Listen!” Briné hissed suddenly. They all froze; Saché found she couldn’t even breathe. Then they heard it. “The STAP ship.”

“I think it’ll be up there for a few minutes,” said Yané. It was the faintest of whirring; Saché hoped that ship was far up high.

“Do you think they’ll discover the speeder?” asked Ené anxiously.

“Sooner or later,” snapped Saché, loudly enough to regret it a moment later.

Especially when Vatié hissed, “Don’t! They’ll hear you.”

“They probably won’t,” Yané replied. “We just have to wait. Keep calm...” She didn’t sound calm at all, though.

After what seemed like an eternity, at last they could no longer hear it. “”Go!” Saché yelled, and again they all broke into a run.

Again they piled into the second barn, which was empty, which made Losté take a quick breath in. “There are supposed to be animals in here. Where are they?”

“The Federation must have taken them away, obviously,” said Coté. “Probably killed them.”

“Or even the farmers,” suggested Yané. “To keep them from the Federation.”

“They would never!” Ardré protested.

“Quiet!” Briné hissed at her urgently. Everyone fell silent.

Then Briné added, “Listen. The keeper’s cabin.”

They could now hear an unmistakable humming sound coming from that general direction. “Do we try to do something about what’s in there?” Vatié whispered.

“If we do that,” Coté pointed out, “they’ll know we’ve been here.”

“They’ll know that already from the speeder,” replied Saché. “But we need more information. Stay here.”

The humming grew louder when she stepped outside. The keeper’s cabin was a dark gray structure a little further from the two barns; Saché also saw the outline of what she assumed was the threshing room beyond it.

Weapon at the ready, she stepped to the cabin door. She still heard only the humming, though. No whirring or clanking or anything. She was waiting to hear the first sign of it as she inched the door open.

She stepped into an empty room with two doors and a stairway. There were also a table, some broken chairs, and the melted-down remains of a console and efficiency cookset. The humming was coming from upstairs.

She put her ear to both doors, heard nothing, then inched both doors opened. As she’d thought, they led to a bedroom and fresher, both of which looked untouched by the cabin’s intruders; they probably hadn’t stayed here very long. They might not have even killed the keeper; she’d have probably smelt his corpse if it was in the cabin. Taken him to a prison camp, more likely.

Upstairs she found large piles of objects, mostly old-looking, many rusting. It took her several moments before she spotted a tell-tale glow, hidden underneath one of the bigger piles of older objects near the far end of the room. She picked her way over and pushed aside the smaller objects; the bigger ones were too heavy.

She couldn’t tell at all what it was. It was large, it had a Trade Federation design, there was a light-up screen filled with symbols she didn’t understand, and it hummed very loudly and vibrated under her hand.

After a moment’s hesitation Saché drew her blaster and fired straight into the thing’s center. She nodded at the broken and melted screen as it went black.

Then she heard a rumbling sound come from deep inside the device’s interior. She took several steps back before she saw it start to shake. She turned and ran.

The rumbling grew louder as she returned to the first floor and raced for the door. She thought the doorframe was shaking when she passed under it.

As she ran for the barns, she saw Yané come outside and her eyes widen. She looked back and saw the keeper’s cabin shaking. Then it exploded.

The force of it sent her flying through the air until she smacked into the barn wall. She crumpled to the ground in a pained daze.

Her head was pounding so hard she couldn’t think. She felt someone take her arm, and heard Yané yell, “Everybody run now!”

They ran. Saché’s feet stumbled, her head continued to pound, but she ran, her mind focused on the fingers sunk into her arm, pulling her along. She thought they were running downhill but that could have been her legs getting heavy and dragging her downwards.

She became more certain of their surroundings when she no longer felt the sun beating down on her neck and back and she heard the rustle and snap of more foliage underfoot; they had reached the safety of the woods.

She heard Losté call out, “This way! This way!” They were all following her, she knew this place, and she led them deep into the woods.


	7. A Search for Shelter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The handmaidens meet up with allies.

When the reached the storehouses at last, no one had the energy to think. They were guarded by battle droids, which the handmaidens blew apart very quickly. By now they were so hungry there was little thought of dignity or prudence; they pulled open one of the storage bins and fell on its contents; Saché thought it contained some sort of hard breadstuff but all that really mattered was that it was edible. But now her headache was diminished a little bit, and after the girls had polished off half the bin’s contents she was able to consider the situation.

“New rule,” she announced as they all slowed down their eating. “Do not try to destroy anything unless we can be certain it won’t backfire on you somehow.”

“That’s not going to be easy,” said Yané.

“Then what will we do?” asked Vatié. “Find refugees?”

Saché hadn’t yet thought that far. “We need more information,” she mused out loud. “But how could we get it?”

“They’ve got to have records of their doings somewhere,” said Lané.

“In Theed, probably,” Saché continued. “Unless they’re up on their ships, in which case we probably can’t get at them.”

“Where are we right now?” Coté. “How far away is Theed?”

“We’re about a quarter around the planet,” said Losté. “A little bit to the North.”

“Then we’re going to need to find transport. Losté, any ideas?”

Losté shrugged. “There should have been a speeder by the keeper’s cabin. There also should have been one here. Any vehicles I’d know about have probably been taken by the Federation.”

“At any rate, we can’t stay here; they’ll come here. We need to take what food we can easily carry and find a place to spend the night.”

“I know a place,” said Losté. “A cave. About an hour’s walk from here. The Federation may overlook it.”

“Then lead the way. Pack up, everybody. We’re going.”

They left the storehouses with their minds much more in place than they had been when they had gotten there. This meant they were no longer panicked or upset, but it also meant there was room for them to be nervous and wary, and they clustered behind Losté and Saché, each girl with her blaster in hand. “Don’t shoot,” Saché whispered, “Unless you’re sure. The power cells of these things have a lot of juice in them, but they aren’t going to last forever, and it’ll attract attention too.”

More than once a noise disturbed them in the bush, and one or more of the handmaidens raised her weapon, but they had listened; noone fired. “Large beasts?” Saché asked Losté in a whisper.

“Probably,” Losté whispered back. “The carnivorous ones usually don’t attack humans, but if anything charges us with very sharp teeth bared, we probably should fire at it.”

Nothing charged them at all as they crept their way through trees that started to grow taller as they went along, the plants under their boots getting thicker until they had to take care not to trip. “This is a place that is supposed to be left alone, undisturbed,” Losté said softly as she led them over a pile of sharp rocks. “By agreement of just about everyone who lives around here. Young people do come here sometimes to do various things.”

“Do you think we might find anyone there now?” suggested Vatié. “People who escaped the battle droids, like us?”

“I hope so!” said Lané. “Then we could help them.”

“Don’t rely on it,” said Losté. “It’s only a small portion of the planet’s population that knows it exists.”

But as they got closer, and found the faint vestiges of a trail to follow, Losté knelt several times to examine the ground, finally declaring, “Someone else has been here recently, and I don’t think battle droids.”

“How long ago?” Saché asked.

She shrugged. “At least a few hours. Possibly a week.” On hearing this last part, several of the girls sagged with noticeable disappointment.

At last the trees parted before them, and they came into a brown-green glen. The entrance to the cave was on the far side of the clearing, a low ridge of thick grey rock hovering over lichen-encrusted walls that swiftly faded into the darkness beyond.

Losté advanced first, Saché on her heels, the others not far behind. At the threshold the older handmaiden stopped and said softly, “We’re not alone.”

“Are you sure?” whispered Ené. “If there’s someone there, they’re being so quiet. Can you sense anything, Coté?”

Coté shook her head, and whispered back, “My brain’s still dead right now; I can’t sense a thing.”

“The footprints here have to be extremely recent,” Losté explained, still in a whisper. “They don’t last long on this ground; I’m surprise they’re here at all.”

“And you don’t think they’re...” Saché started.

“Not battle droids, no.”

“Very well, then. Carefully, even so.”

All was silence after that; the handmaidens taking care to make no sound even on this marshy surface. As the darkness of the cave closed around them, Vatié took out her communicator and held it out just behind the two leaders to help them, making Saché chide herself internally for not thinking of that herself. In the feeble light, she thought she saw the walls curve and bend a moment before Losté turned and gestured for the others to do likewise.

A moment later Vatié and her communicator made the turn, and a split second after that the inner cave was flooded with pale light, and three figures leapt to their feet and held out long knives towards the intruders.

They were young men, between fifteen and twenty years in age, one of them dressed in a militia uniform, possibly the youngest of them, but unquestionably their leader. It was he who first lowered his weapon and stepped forward, saying, “Royal Handmaidens?”

“That’s right,” said Saché. She too stepped forward, and lowered her blaster. “I’m leader of this little group, and I assume you’re the same.”

“I am,” he said, as they shook hands. “Tor Rorerrie. Behind me are Kladi Hock and Drosos Merine.” There was a pause as he clearly hoped to learn their names, but when Saché said nothing he seemingly remembered that handmaidens didn’t give out their names automatically, and he instead looked around behind her in order to count up how many of them there were. That Saché did not mind telling him, and so she did. “Nine,” he repeated. “There’s as many in your group as there is in ours.”

“Where are the other six?”

“About an hour’s walk from here. We left them hidden in a ravine.”

“In the Rashoon?” interrupted Losté. “I would think the Federation would find them there.”

“You know this area?” Tor Rorerrie turned his attention to her.

“I led them to this cave, yes.”

“Well, that was a concern of ours, but we were worried about the Federation finding us anywhere. But in the Rashoon, even if they do find us, they might have some trouble getting to us; we can use the ground to our advantage.”

“Should we join you there?” Saché asked, though she was not absolutely sure they would.

“If you can keep up with us,” he said with a grin.

“We can keep up with anyone,” Saché bristled. “Take us with you and you won’t regret it.”

#### Early Evening

The Rashoon was a huge canyon, seven layers at least, each with jagged brown edges and piles of rocks that threatened to fall with the slightest shake. It was so large it wasn’t even rockland entirely; groves of trees dotted the upper levels, and the lower levels, Losté and the boys had told the others, were swampy, though the top was among the driest soil on the planet. From the rim, however, in the fading light, the lower levels were only visible as a greyish-brown blur of shapes.

“Where are the others?” Saché asked Rorerrie. “And how do we get to them?”

“The others probably aren’t where we left them,” he replied. “We told them to keep moving.”

“Why did you do that?” Saché asked, surprised. “That doesn’t make sense from a strategic stance at all.”

“So you know so much about strategy, then?” he retorted, and he tried to draw himself up above her.

“I’m trained for situations not unlike this,” she snapped, not wanting to be challenged in front of the other handmaidens.

“Are you really?” He almost was sneering at her.

She spent a moment too flustered to respond, before deciding that he had no right to ask such questions, and ignored it: “Where do you think they are now? Please say you have some idea.”

“Somewhere very far down.” He was still sneering. “Hopefully we’ll rendevous at the bottom.”

“The bottom’s pretty big,” said Losté doubtfully.

“Either way,” said Rorerrie, “we shouldn’t stay out here in the open.”

Though Losté kept close to the front too, when Saché didn’t know the Rashoon, she was forced to follow Rorerrie’s lead, and she was aware she would have to let him be in charge during the descent. She had a vague idea that she ought to act as if she was still commanding, but she didn’t know how to do that. All she could do was keep very close to him, force him with her questions to keep her continually informed about the route they were taking, and keep her blaster cocked, while telling herself when they reached the woods not to shoot at the first rustle this time.

They didn’t start to really descend until about half an hour of walking had passed, while sand and little pebbles got into their boots, and they breathed in air that stung their lungs and eyes. That only got worse, as the ground slanted and with each step it felt like slippery rocks would give way and send them tumbling. When they finally reached the forest, the shelter was even more welcome for the sense of security it gave the handmaidens; here the STAPs couldn’t see them, here any droids hunting them couldn’t get at them without noisily crashing through the neighbouring area, and here, surrounded by the wealth of their home planet, they felt as if somehow they were on their own ground, even though the whole planet ought to have been that.

It seemed kind of strange to them that their companions appeared to have the opposite reaction. But they got jumpy in the woods, looking around so much it was a wonder they could see navigate the path without tripping. Matters got worse as the deepening evening brought the bugs with it; the handmaidens in their skirts actually suffered worse from the flies, but the men reacted more, ducking around in vain attempts to evade what could not be escaped, swatting angrily, hunching over more. Though to be fair, Lané and Vatié did a bit of that too, but less.

There was a bit of a stench coming up at times, between some of the plants and the bugs. Saché didn’t know what generated what parts of it, though she assumed Briné did. Near her, she thought she saw Yané limping a bit; as Briné had warned, the injury was getting to her. She stole a glance back at Ardré and noted she seemed fine so far.

Then a foul scent hit her nostrils that she might not have been able to identify when she had woken up that morning, but she knew it now. She and the other handmaidens had been subjected to it for much of that day, until they had placed the source of it in a freezer because they hadn’t been able to properly bury her while on the run.

She was stunned when she looked at Rorerrie and the other young men, and they showed no sign of recognizing that smell. She wasn’t sure she wasn’t missing something. But then she looked at the other handmaidens, and they all nodded to her; they were smelling exactly what she was, and Saché thought it was close by. “I think we should find the source of that smell,” she declared.

“I don’t think it’s important,” said Rorerrie. “We need to find the others first.”

“It could be the others,” said Yané.

“You think so?” asked Drosos Merine.

“It’s a possibility,” said Saché. “That’s at least two corpses, I think.”

Rorerrie’s face flexed for a moment, as he tried to hide his shock and pretend he’d known that already. Saché knew she shouldn’t punch him, so she didn’t. “You have a good point there,” he said. “All right, we take a look.”

Not wanting to act only under his orders, Saché had already started to move in the direction of the stench, the other handmaidens following. They’d nearly reached it's origins by that time, she was now certain it was only behind the large dark fronds which she pushed aside.

The bodies were in the cloaks and gowns of civilians, but what hit Saché immediately was that they didn’t look like local farmers; they were dressed too fine, and the one face she could see was too smooth.

Then Coté said, “Look at the belt of the woman with the braid on the far right. I think I’ve seen that symbol before.”

Rorerrie joined Saché as she knelt before the woman in question and flipped it over. Even after handling Moré’s body it revolted her to touch the corpse, especially when she felt that she was bloodied under her chest, but even through the clothes soaked black she recognized the symbol on the belt. “The Lasara family symbol. This is Eirtaé’s relative.”

“We’re not far from Parrlay,” said Losté. Parrlay was the Lasara family stronghold.

“Parrlay was attacked,” said Rorerrie. He turned over another member of the party; he too had the symbol on his belt. “Though I thought everyone was either killed or captured on site; I didn’t know anyone escaped.”

“But if these people died here,” said Saché, “who killed them, and where are they now?”

Kladi Hock was stepping around the bodies, studying the ground. “I don’t see any footprints.”

“You’re on the wrong side,” said Losté. “Those two were clearly shot from this direction, which means we’ve probably stamped all over the footprints.”

“Are you so sure of that?” Rorerrie demanded, as if he was offended at being called wrong.

“If she says so she is,” Saché told him coldly. “Though we might as well look to see if there are any footprints left.”

Merine joined the handmaidens as they scouted around the path, looking for the tiny rectangular indentations of battle droid feet or damage to foliage. It was Ené who first spotted the latter, wandering a little further until she yelled, “Over here!” They all rushed over fast enough to nearly knock her into her discovery: a tangle of snapped branches and scattered vines, and the unmistakable footprints, more visible on the far side, going off and away from the path. “They don’t have a map of this place,” observed Rorrerie. “There’s nothing that way but steep rocks.”

“So there’s no need to follow them, at least,” said Saché.

“Then what should we do,” asked Vatié, hesitantly, “about the bodies?”

There wasn’t time to bury them fully, and Saché was vaguely aware that people from families like the Lasaras didn’t like to be buried just anywhere; they wanted their family plots. But they couldn’t just leave them there, especially not when they were family to a sister handmaiden. Also there was the growing question of how much ground they would be able to cover that night anyway, when Yané was starting to seriously limp, and even Ardré wasn’t fully steady on her feet anymore; she was trying to hide it but Saché had noticed. It might be just as well to pause for just a few minutes, let Briné look her two patients over, and throw at least some dirt over the bodies.

All this flashed through her head in less than a second, and then, as if on cue, Briné said, “If we toss a little bit of soil on them, it should give them at least a little protection from scavengers.”

“Do it, then,” ordered Saché. “Briné, you should take a look at Yané, I think.”

“Now wait just a minute,” said Rorerrie. “You don’t get to just give my men orders like that.”

Saché was aware a leader ought to have patience, but she didn’t. “Fine, then. We’ll do it without you.”

“We need to stay together; you can’t stay here.”

“Oh, so  _you_  can give  _us_  orders?” So much for avoiding the issue.

“Let me speak plainly,” he said coldly. “As a member of the volunteer militia, I do the authority, yes, to take command of anyone who joins my forces-”

“What’s your rank in the militia?” Losté interrupted.

“Huh?” Apparently he couldn’t take being interrupted.

“Your rank,” she said. “Are you a lieutenant? Sargeant? Private? Higher or lower?”

“Sargeant,” he growled. “And that’s why-”

“How long?” she pressed. “Two years? Three?”

“One year, nine months, and twenty-nine days.”

“Ah!” she crowed, triumphant. “Ené, Ardré, and I were made sargeants two years and three months ago, and we’re still members of the militia, and I don’t think we’re categorized as inactive, so we have seniority over you. Ardré, you were made a couple of weeks before us, right?”

“That’s right,” said Ardré, who was grinning too; so were all the other handmaidens, and the thought that it was the lowest ranking of those there that was authorized to take control was even more amusing-until Saché remembered why she was now the lowest-ranking. “I’ll be taking command here, Sargeant Rorerrie. And as a handmaiden, I then defer to the highest-ranked handmaiden present-your men, Saché.”

Rorerrie was gaping. The other two also looked a little dismayed. “Three of you in the militia?” Hock demanded, incredulous.

“Four,” said Coté. She didn’t mention she’d only been a private.

“Handmaidens are often recruited from the militia,” said Vatié. “And that shouldn’t surprise you. We’re trained for the same profession as you. Just because we spend so much time doing our mistress’ hair doesn’t mean we can’t fight as well as any soldier for our cause, and make no mistake, this is our cause now, as much as the Queen’s personal protection has normally been, for we are not confined to narrow roles, and what Her Highness orders us to do, as if her words themselves transform us, we do as if it was our only purpose in life.”

“That’s right, Vatié,” said Saché, very, very firmly; she was not in the mood for speeches from anyone. “Now as I was saying, if everyone could throw a little soil over the bodies, while Briné examines Yané at least, as well as the other injured if she thinks it’s a good idea.”

They all obeyed, but Saché was quick enough to see that while the other girls flew to it, grabbing their handfuls of dirt and hurling them down, the boys dragged their feet. She wanted to snap at them, but she was distracted, both by her own work with the soil, and because with one eye she watched Briné kneeling Yané down, both of them struggling to keep themselves at least partly out of the messy ground, and examining her bandaged sides. It wasn’t a sight for the faint of heart; they were covered with large red-purple blotches, possibly even black in places, which frightened Saché. But Briné looked very calm, and she was nodding and saying, “About what it should look like…this is going to hurt, Yané; tell me how much.” Saché nearly winced in sympathy as Briné began pressing down in places, very lightly, but it was enough for Yané to grimace, for her fists to clench, for strained whimpers to escape her gritted teeth. “Bad,” she squeaked. “Not as bad…very bad…even worse!” On that last she bent downward, hands pressing through watery soil now heedless of its filth.

“That’s not particularly good…” Briné mused. “Could be worse, but still not good." She replaced some of the bloodier bandages, then went to examine Ardré. It was clear immediately, even to Saché’s untrained eye, that the older girl was in better shape, her wrappings less colored, and with less signs of pain. Briné looked very pleased by her. “At this rate,” she commented, “by this time tomorrow you might be more or less back to normal.”

They were finishing up when Rorerrie suddenly asked, “Um, excuse me? Miss Saché? Do you think maybe Miss Briné could look at Mr. Hock?”

“Yes, please,” said Briné immediately, and at that Saché nodded. It troubled her, however, that she hadn’t noticed anything wrong with him, while Briné without being told immediately knelt and said to him, “Take your boot off so I can see that ankle.” There didn’t seem to be anything wrong with the ankle to her, but Briné tsked on seeing it. “I don’t have much bacta left,” she said, “So I’m going to give you a thin layer. I need you to stay very, very still; I don’t want to waste a speck of this stuff.”

Meanwhile Rorerrie, trying to impress Saché even if he couldn’t give her orders, sidled up to her as they finished covering the corpses, and said, “I’ve been thinking about those footprints, and it’s rather odd. The battles droids seem to have somehow gotten away that dead end when I don’t know if they could have stayed up on those rocks.”

Saché had thought about this already. “There are two possibilities,” she said. “Either they braved the rocks and are somewhere on them right now, traveling very slowly, but they probably can transverse them eventually, or they went back the way they came-those footprints were blurred enough we couldn’t tell which direction they were doing in, and they could have easily walked back over them so only set remained, and then could be anywhere.”

He didn’t have anything more to say to that, except a dark mutter of, “They’d better be on those rocks,” he probably didn’t mean for her to hear, though she did agree with it.

“There,” said Briné. “Done.” She rose, and Hock carefully wiggled his ankle about before putting his boot back on. “We’re ready to go on.”

“Lead the way,” Saché said to Rorerrie.

Pleased to take the lead again, he strode forward along the path he’d been leading them, and Saché let Losté follow immediately after in front of her; as long as he submitted to her command she didn’t have to breath down his neck all the time, she supposed.

But as they got further underway, they quickly became aware that more time had passed during their pause than perhaps they had intended. They had men's lantern, but still couldn't see very far. "Do you have any idea how much longer we might be able to go on?” Saché asked Rorerrie.

Losté answered, “Probably until we reach the Thrushing Grove. That’s about an hour’s walk from here, I think, maybe more? Maybe less? Rorerrie, what do you think?”

“Definitely more,” said Rorerrie.

“Anyway, the trees there get really thick, and they go on for quite some length. They’d make for good protection, I think.”

“Then we spend the night there,” said Saché.

The next hour proved uneventful. There were a couple of times, as they penetrated deeper into the Rashoon, that they heard low thumps in the distance, but those, Losté and the young men were quick to say, were almost certainly the herds of hrumphs that lived in this part of the Rashoon. It was a good thing they weren’t near them, but the beasts certainly weren’t looking for them.

The trees grew so thick and the light so dim Saché wasn’t entirely sure when the sun officially went down, but she was fairly certain it was by the time the lantern barely allowed them to see anything at all, and she nearly called a halt to their march on those grounds when Rorriere reached his illuminated arm out and touched a trunk darker and broader than most of the ones they had seen so far, and on it was a distinct notch. “We’re at the grove’s entrance.”

“Shouldn’t the moons be up soon?” asked Lané. “Will the light get down here?”

“Rori should,” said Rorerrie. “But it’ll be at least another half hour. Ohma-D'un will take half the night, and Tasia's currently in its new phase.”

“How well do you know this grove?” Saché asked.

“Enough,” replied Rorerrie, “to suggest we travel about four more lengths, where there’s smooth ground and a growth of Yuu vines. The smell of the latter takes some getting used to, but it repels insects.”

At this point Saché’s thighs were riddled with bites, and as her leggings slumped down the skin below her knees was being attacked as well. Nor had she been able to swat away all the insects that had landed on her face and collarbone, and once she fell asleep she would be completely unguarded. She didn’t even have to look at the other handmaidens to know they were all thinking the same thing as her: “We should make use of it, then.”

The Yuu vines did smell, a punguant odor that laced the air and made them aware, before they even saw the plant clearly, how far it extended. The plant was parasitical, nestled in the folds of a very old and gnarled tree, and after many hours of trudging through swampland in dimming light, when the lantern light moved away from her Saché allowed herself to lean back and cling to the trunk, as around her she heard the quiet sounds of the others also getting off their feet. She also allowed her head to fall back, her eyes to fall closed, and her mouth to fall open. She felt tears start to well up, but even if the others could no longer see her, they could still hear her.

Not to mention her duties for the day still were not done, there were two sentries to assign to keep watch the next eight hours. She ran her way through handmaidens: Yané and Ardré both injured, Briné needed to save her strength, possibly Coté should as well. She wished she knew something about the strength and weaknesses of the two uninjured militia men.

“I would like to take the first watch,” said Rorerrie, and Saché felt a gut impulse to rule out Merine for the second. She wasn’t sure where it came from, but she said, after another moment to mentally consider ranking versus knowledge of a grove when everyone was staying put in it, “Very well. Wake up Lané for the second in four hours.”

She hoped he would in fact do so, though if he didn’t she would be brutal to him. But with this last command, she felt her strength for the day give out. As Rorerrie took position, and dimmed the lantern just a touch, she sank to the grass, not caring when dirt smudged into her hair, and a couple of tears did escape, if only for Moré, whose death her heart had still not accepted; perhaps it would never accept it.

She was exhausted, more than she had ever been in her life. For all she had insisted on retaining leadership, even over he who actually wanted it, she wished Sabé was there; she wouldn’t have had any trouble with this; she would have taken charge without fear. She probably wouldn’t have needed the others to save her when a young militia member challenged her authority. Maybe she could have even saved Moré. And she would probably have some far more real idea of just what they were going to do the next day.


	8. The Morning in the Middle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Federation missiles hit a nearby city.

An hour into her shift found Lané squatting by the quiescent Losté and Ené, who had fallen asleep next to each other furthest out, counting out ten minutes, or what felt like ten minutes, since she didn’t actually have a chronometer, before she would stand up and make another lap around, just in cast she could see anything. At least she didn’t feel as useless as she had for most of the past two days.

She thought about the Queen, and Sabé and Eirtaé and Rabé. They had to nearly be at Coruscant by now. Unless the Trade Federation had captured them. She shivered at the thought. It had to be in all their minds, and there was no way for them to know what was going on out there.

And speaking of anxieties about people they could not get news about, from not too many feet away she heard a soft cry of “No!” and a gasp, and saw Vatié spring up into a sitting position, waking up from what was undoubtedly a nightmare about her father. She watched as the other handmaiden shook her head, coming to her senses, but did not lie back down.

Clambering over a couple of rocks between Losté and Drosos Merine, Lané sidled up to her and put a hand on her shoulder, “Hey,” she said. “It’s okay. They won’t hurt him. He’s more valuable to them alive. They’re probably hoping if the Queen’s gone long enough, they can argue him into a position of acting King and try to force him to sign the treaty.”

“But that possibility wouldn’t have kept the Queen safe,” said Vatié, “At least not according to the Jedi.”

“But they didn’t offer any logical explanation for it,” said Lané. “Personally, I wouldn’t assume these Jedi are always right, just like that. I’m sure the Queen did what she thought was best, of course, and part of the reason she left was probably also because of the possibility to speaking to the Senate in person, which will probably greatly increase her chance of getting something done, but maybe she wasn’t in that much danger, and therefore your father isn’t either.” She wasn’t entirely lying as she said this; hearing Saché and Yané relate the way the Jedi Master had talked about it, it had sounded a little weird and without explanation.

“But if they think they can just replace a monarch,” said Vatié, “then they’ll just kill dad when he refuses to sign the treaty.”

That was something Lané couldn’t deny. “Still,” she said, “He’s safe for some time yet. They need her to be away for a while before they can even try anything.”

“How long, do you think?”

Lané hesitated. Interplanetary law was not her forte. It never had been, and when the last year she had made the decision that she was unlikely to try for the higher-level political positions, she hadn’t thought herself needing to be much of an expert on it anyway. She wished Eirtaé was here; she’d likely be able to answer Vatié’s question no problem. It made her feel useless again.

But all thoughts about Governor Bibble flew out of her head a second later, because suddenly, above them, she heard a new humming sound, too loud to just be a STAP ship, though it didn’t sound like one of those searcher droids that had found them in the graveyard. Vatié heard it too; her hand reached for her pistol.

“No, wait...” There was something funny about the sound, as if it wasn’t from nearby. Lané tried to focus her ears. Then it grew louder.

Saché sprung up, and within moments had stalked over the bodies of the others to join them. “Why are you awake?” she asked Vatié. “You’ve got to sleep when you can. And what’s overhead?”

It was overhead; once Lané was told that; she identified it as so for herself within another moment. “We need to get a look at the sky, then?” But all the treetops were in the way.

“We’ll have to wake Losté up to ask for directions,” said Saché, and she leaned down and gently shook the older handmaiden.

“You’re doing it again, Rit,” Losté grumbled to the ground, but then she was fully awake. As she got up, Lané noticed Ené stirring, but she remained lying down.

Losté quickly led them around the others to where the trees were further apart deeper in the grove, and the sky was exposed. For several minutes the four of them stared up at the stars. Lané thought again of the Queen, and of the three leaders of their little group, somewhere amoung them, no doubt very far away now, whatever their fate.

Then the humming sound they had heard became much, much louder, until it was a dull roar, and they heard groans and mutterings from the group behind them because noone could sleep through this din. Then the distant lights in the sky vanished one by one just as the roar reached its height.

Then they stayed blocked, the only way they could gauge the size of what blocked them, and five minutes passed, and then ten, and then more, until Lané murmured, “Stars and galaxies...”

Finally the first star to vanish reappeared, and for a moment, Lané felt relief, that whatever that thing was, at least it wasn’t any bigger.

But a moment later, there was a tiny flash of yellow light from the ship’s edge, and Saché swore loudly enough to jar everyone to full consciousness. “Are they aiming for here?”

“Aiming what?” They heard someone yell.

“Missles! I’m pretty sure they just launched one from that ship up there!”

A moment later they heard the explosion, from some way off, Lané thought, but if it wasn’t in the Rashoon, it must have been a pretty big one to be audible from there.

“Missles!” Rorrerrie had joined the four of them under the stars. “How many?”

“No telling,” said Saché. “The ship’s out of sight, and they seem to just be dropping them without any specific aim, just to make the mud fly up.” They heard another distant explosion, from the other direction. “At least two, though. When we find the others, we need to find where they landed and if anyone’s hurt, we need to help.”

“If anyone’s hurt?” Rorerrie laughed scornfully. “If those things landed in habited areas, girl, it’ll be less people being hurt and more them being killed in large numbers and there won’t be much more we’ll be able to do by the time we get there.”

“Is there anyone else in the area, though?” asked Lané thoughtfully. “Surely everyone’s in camps now, unless they’re in resistance. The towns have to be emptied by this time, anyway.”

“That’s true,” said Saché, and Lané felt her squeeze her arm in gratitude. That was a trusting gesture, she thought, but it was okay; she thought Saché was holding her head together pretty well, considering the circumstances they were in.

They heard a third explosion, from very far away, certainly too far away for them to hope to get there in time to anything at all about it. And it was that thought, that they were helpless against that one, that brought the surge of grief to the surface, Lané’s heart crashing for Eirtaé’s family, for Moré, for Governor Bibble still in Theed, his life lasting only on the sufferance of their cruel captors, and for all the people they weren’t going to be able to save. Beside her, Vatié shook her fist up at the sky and sighed, “Federation! You’ll pay for this! If not here, then in years to come, for however long it takes...”

“We’ll exact our price on them sooner than that, I hope,” said Saché. “But for now, everyone back to sleep except Lané. We cannot afford to waste energy by standing here yelling like a pair of waterlogged whitewings!”

But even she had to know that was easier said than done. The five of them walked back and the other four lay down while Lané placed herself as a guard over them all, but as she listened to the uneven breathing in the night, she doubted that any of them slept straight through the follow hours.

#### The next morning

Though Saché’s head had been too full to think about their grander motivations, she’d heard the other handmaidens make comments, especially on their journey overland to the Handmaidens’ Graveyard, about the beauty of Naboo, what the Trade Federation, which ruined planets and lived on technology, could never understand and appreciate, and how defending it would be a worthy cause even if it was not their home, and that it was, well, what person who had not grown up in Naboo’s splendour, been nourished by its resources, and formed by its close-to-nature culture would not die to preserve it? The most florid words had been Vatié’s, of course, but most of the others had chimed in at least once.

And Saché certainly agreed with them. Which was why it felt like a harsh slap in the face indeed when that planet’s bountiful flora turned on them.

Twenty minutes after sunrise, when they should have already been on the move, they were all gathered around Briné and Losté, as the former pulled vicious black needles out of the latter’s hands. The wounds she’d gotten from their flight from the museum had been reopened, the effects of the bacta reversed, and despite her best efforts tears appeared in her eyes and her teeth ground against each other as Briné pried free one that had managed to get almost entirely below her skin. She’d woken up to find the vines had attacked her overnight. Both Briné and Merine, who had also recognized the plant, had assured the others they were extremely rare, but the former had still declared she needed to check their other wounded too.

When she was done, Losté was left to pant through her mouth in a clear struggle to avoid breaking down, while Briné shook her head. “When we can’t get her to a real doctor, the healing of her hands now is a matter of chance; they could be permanently damaged.”

“Maybe we’ll find one fleeing from the camps?” suggested Ené hopefully. “It’s not impossible, is it?”

“First we have to find people fleeing from the camps,” said Saché, wanting to keep them focused on the task at hand. But maybe it wasn’t the smartest thing to say, because it seemed to run a current of depression through the group; several of them slumped down, and Lané sighed very softly.

None of their other injured had been attacked by anything. In fact, Briné smiled for the first time that morning as she announced that Hock and Ardré were close to healed, and Yané was far better. The mood was further lifted when on the far side of the grove, they found the shuura trees were ripe, and so they ate well that morning, if quickly.

And finally, after an evening of wondering exactly how they were going to find the other six men in the ravine, they shortly into that morning came upon fresh footprints, and a group so large they did not find it difficult to track. Within another hour they heard their footsteps, and Rorerrie called out to them. A few minutes later the group of nine men were reunited and the newcomers introduced to the handmaidens, though they appeared a little miffed to hear they were to be under their command.

“We heard the explosions too,” said the leader of the group, one Tollo Mothemi, who appeared to Saché to be not much older than she herself, delibrately facing towards and addressing Rorerrie. “We’re trying to get back to the surface, but we couldn’t hear them very well."

“What are the nearest routes out of here?” she asked Losté and Rorerrie, stepping between the latter and Mothemi.

“Up over the rocks to the Northwest, probably,” said Losté, just as Rorerrie said, “Through the marshes to the Northeast, but the sooner we come out, the sooner we’re vulnerable to attack.”

Although Saché would have much rather taken Losté’s advice for more than one reason, the nearer explosion had been from the Northeast. “Through the marshes, then,” she ordered, “Quick as we can.” She didn’t know if they could get to the explosion within enough time to do any good, but she feared the consequences, now, of saying that out loud.

Once again under Rorerrie’s lead they trudged away, and as they walked, Saché tried to distract herself from the growing ache in her legs by sizing up her newest soldiers as best she could. Most of them were around her own age, but two, a tall man named Jon Kloiterrie(same last name as Yané’s mother; Saché wondered if there was any relation there) and a shorter one name Kitpat Arthi, looked a little older. Another, Yules Latt, was fidgeting about and looked more nervous than even was to be expected; that worried her. Something about him also reminded her of Moré, and she found herself, as they reached the marshes and she watched from the corner of her eye as he stumbled and visibly grit his teeth, growing very determined that he should not suffer Moré’s fate.

He wasn’t the only one struggling. The boys overall were dealing with the swamp slightly better than they had the previous day, but three days of stress and running and constant movement was taking a toll on everyone. She saw Lané was sagging, Ené leaning on Ardré for support, and one Lexi Tenil, whom she thought might be the youngest of the militia members, had turned unnaturally pale. Uneasily she wondered when the six of them had last eaten.

Unfortunately, it was one thing for Saché to notice all this, another to know what to do about it. Especially when she still wasn’t sure just how much the boys had accepted her as their leader.

They must have made better time that morning than the previous evening, but noon was fast approaching when they reached the edge of the marsh, and found their way blocked by the thickest line of trees yet. “We’ll have to blast our way through this,” said Rorerrie, and noone made any protest, though certainly none of the handmaidens drew their blasters to help. Saché saw Briné, especially, try to remain stoic as he blew into the aged trees with more zeal than any of the Federation’s metallic minions would have bothered with.

Two minutes later they gingerly stepped over charred roots and fallen branches, and immediately saw rising smoke to their right, not far off. Saché again took the lead, her blaster drawn, but beckoned Briné to join her near the front.

“Miss, if I may,” said Rorerrie. “Glose is our medic.”

Hadri Glose, a stocky lad who looked only a little younger than Kloiterrie and Arthi, stepped forward. Briné looked at him, was it just Saché’s imagination or did she appear a little relieved? Saché obligingly crooked her finger for him too to join them, but she was not happy about Rorerrie speaking so challengingly to her now. The time coming up was for action, not arguments.

The grass here grew thick and solid, in contrast to the thinner ground they had spent so much time treading. But overhead, the gathering clouds in the more distant half of the sky gave Saché a new thing to worry about. Nearer, great plumes of smoke loomed over them and threatened to blot out of the sun.

The land was flat, and the going a little easier, even if occasionally their boots accidentally drove out small rodents who had borrowed into the dirt below. Within a few minutes their destination was fixed in Saché’s gaze as a far off fuzzy black sight, from which smoke continued to rise. After some hesitation, and mental cursing that she had neither the needed ability nor the knowledge of who did, she asked, “Does anyone think they can help me determine how far away that is?”

A pause, and then Yules Latt spoke up, “I...I think that may be Julika. If it is, it’s a little over an hour’s walk.”

“He’s from Julika,” one of the other men offered.

When Saché looked back, it was with the vague thought of seeing if anyone else might have something to say. But she was immediately taken with the sight of Latt, whose entire body was as clenched as his fists, and was not quite managing to fight back tears.

She walked over to him, and tried to keep her voice gentle, as she asked, “How certain are you that that’s Julika?”

“I don’t...” He started, then shook his head and said, “I think it must be.”

“I really think it is,” said Lexi Tonil, the man who had spoken earlier. “It’s in the right place to be, that’s for sure.”

“What can you tell me about Julika? How many people are there, usually? How much space does it cover? Do you have any idea when the Federation emptied it?”

Tollo Mothemi laughed scornfully. “How should he know when Julika was evacuated? We’ve all been in Keren for the past six weeks!”

She should have known that. Why hadn’t she paid more attention to what the militia had been doing? Especially when the possibility of invasion had never been out, to her own mind. But it was too late now.

At least Latt didn’t seem to hold it against her, answering readily, “It’s the biggest town in this area, but I think it’s only got about 2,000 people year round, 500 more during the winter. I think a lot of people might have fled to the country fields when news of the invasion came.” He sounded hopeful.

But Rorerrie shook his head, and said, “They’ve probably all been gathered up by now, if they have.”

“Well, at least they weren’t in Julika itself,” said Saché. “But if they've escaped the Federation they might not be far off.” And some of them might have come back, too, she thought; it would be a foolish thing for them to do, but on seeing their home bombed they might not be able to stay away. She personally thought a good deal of them might be at large; it had only been three days, and it was going to take the Federation time to track everybody down.

So they kept going, only now Latt tentatively moved close, as if doing so would get him to his burning home significantly sooner, and Saché again wished she had the ability to say the right things in this kind of situation.  _We’ll just get there,_  she told herself.  _We’ll get him there. That’s all we can do._

Which was why it soon felt like a curse rather than a blessing that the city was already in their sights, because it was so far away, and for too long they walked and walked and walked, and it didn’t get much closer. With the sun now directly overhead, and getting into their eyes, idly Saché wondered how far they really were from Theed in terms of longitude; was it still morning there? Nighttime? She could ask Losté, she supposed, if she really wanted to know.

But at last, after the handmaidens’ gowns began to grow heavy with sweat again and the clouds grew closer, Julika began to grow in size, then take form, lines unblurring into low rectangles and cracked domes, and an enournmous gap to one side. It was confirmed as Julika, too, when Latt suddenly uttered a dismayed cried, followed by, “The bomb hit the school! Was it aimed at that building itself?”

“Don’t be stupid, Latt,” said Jan Kloiterrie. “How would they have known which building was the school?”

“Doesn’t matter, ultimately,” growled Saché, “whether they aimed there or not, if they did hit it.”

Maybe it was heartless of her, but at the moment Saché didn’t care exactly what parts of the city were damaged, so much as whether any people had been there to be hit along with them; they could be rebuilt anyway. But, of course, they didn’t have any knowledge of that.

At least until Coté came to the front and tried to catch Saché’s eye while looking around at the boys, clearly not wanting them to know her secret. For a moment Saché worried about the implications of keeping it from them, but then again, she couldn’t see any at the moment. If it became harder later to manage something without telling them...well, they’d deal with that then. Until that time trying to explain her just wasn’t worth the huge effort and amount of time it might take. Especially when her powers might just go out again if any of them were killed.

Meanwhile, she jerked her head at the ceiling and looked at Coté questioningly. Coté nodded slightly. There were people alive there.

But then a few minutes after that, she looked at Latt again, and knew she couldn’t do this. He deserved to know.

So when they got a little closer, she said, “I think there may be some survivors.”

“What?!” Latt didn’t react, but Mothemi did. “There were people still there?!”

It was Rorerrie who had the reaction Saché had been hoping against hope to avoid. “Funny that you should suddenly think that, madam. Or does she, perhaps?” And he gestured towards Coté; her and Saché’s silent communication had not gone unnoticed by him.

Coté turned pale, and pulled her arms up to her shoulders, as if drawing into herself. That reaction surprised Saché, but she, having already come up with a response, delivered it: “She sometimes has a sixth sense about these things.”

“Oh really,” he sounded extremely dismissive.

“I believe it,” said Latt softly.

Someone else murmured, “Superstition.” That made Saché angry, but given how Coté was now shivering, maybe it was just as well.

“Let us not dismiss something just because we can’t entirely understand why it might be,” said Vatié. “Remember the Jedi and their abilities. Coté helped us find each other during the Federation’s initial attack.”

“Did she really?” Rorerrie, who was near the front, stopped for a moment, as did Coté, who had already been stumbling over her steps. “Very interesting.”

Ardré stepped between the two of them, “Come on, we have to keep going.”

“She’s right,” said Saché. “Everyone carry on.”

If not for Coté’s intelligence on the matter, Saché would have for sure thought the city deserted by the time they got close. Fires ran unchecked through half of the structures that had slowly materialized before them, and rubble was scattered out through the fields before them where the impact had thrown it; they picked their way through it a full half hour before they at last came to the foundations of the first buildings.

There at last, and it took Saché a moment to decide what to do next. During which Rorerrie took action instead, gesturing to his men, and they spread out, just as Coté said, “There are about ten people in there,” and gestured to one of the few buildings that remained mostly intact, having only had the side of it’s two-story form blown out.

As one, the men stopped and turned back around to fix their eyes on the two handmaidens. Rorerrie was the one to finally ask, of course: “How does she know that?”

“I’ll explain later,” said Saché, and she started marching towards the structure in question.

As she passed Mothemi, he grabbed her wrist, and yelled, “Explain now!”

“And lose time we could be using to come to the aid of people who could be dying in there? It can be talked about later!”

“And what if we don’t believe it will?” demanded Kloiterrie.

“Doesn’t matter; now’s still not the time for this! Let me go!” She wrenched herself free, and her arm raised to slap Mothemi in her anger, though by some miracle she managed to stop herself before it went to that. Still her wrist stung, and she had to remind herself this wasn’t like it had been when she was a child; he wasn’t going to hurt her further.

The other handmaidens were already making their way off, heedless of the power struggle, and the men really had no choice but to follow. It took several minutes too many to reach the building in question, and they were just at the entrance when a pained noise came from Coté and she announced, “One of them’s just died.”

“One of them?” asked one of the men.

“If there are others I won’t be able to tell,” she said grimly. Never mind, Saché told herself; at least her powers had been back long enough for them to find these survivors.

But now without further contribution from Coté they had to find which room their quarry was in by trial and error, and when she saw the stairway by the entrance Saché ordered them to split into two. “Yané,” she said, noting that the younger girl was now standing up straight and looked like she was more or less fully functional again after her injuries two days previous, “take Coté, Vatié, Ené, Merine, Kloiterrie, Arthi, Glose, and Latt with you, The rest of you follow me.” She imagined neither Rorerrie nor Mothemi were happy about being kept with her, but she wasn’t having Yané bullied by then when her back was turned.

She knew she was right when both men walked up until they were standing on either side of her, and then as they stepped into the second room, positioned themselves to limit her view. Saché was just trying to decide whether she was justified in shoving when they heard Ené voice and footsteps coming up, her yelling, “They’re upstairs! We’ve found them!”

“Glose does have more medical knowledge than me,” Briné murmured to Saché was they hurried after her. Saché only shook her head; she felt ashamed that she needed to be told that, but she didn’t know how to handle these men. Yesterday when she’d realized she could lead the other handmaidens she’d finally stopped panicking over whether she could do this, but now once again she was wondering why had the Queen been so foolish as to leave the leader’s role to her.

There were eight people alive, as well as two figures already wrapped in dirty cloth, and a third half-covered who must have been the man Coté had felt die. Two men and six women, all of them looking older than their rescuers. Glose was bandaging up a grey-haired lady, one of two; there was an open medical packet next to them, so at least they had their own supplies. “Briné,” he said on seeing Briné, “the young woman in the corner needs looking at.” Briné probably could have told that on her own, since the woman in question was curved around one of her arms, which ended in a loose sleeve drapped around a wrist that obviously lacked a hand. Saché tried not to look at her too long.

The other grey-haired woman stepped forward, and Saché took her hand. “Saché,” she said, “I’m in charge. Do you know if anyone else is alive in the area?”

“No,” she said, “But I believe not. We hid from the droids from when they came and took everyone else away. I’m Reata.”

Yané, meanwhile, was in intense coversation from one of the two men, who looked like the youngest there. She joined Saché and Reata shaking her head. “It’s worse than we thought. They didn’t just drop a missle, they dropped timed explosives with it. They haven’t heard any explosions over here for a couple of hours, and we can hope none of them landed here, but moving out’s not going to be easy.”

“We have to help these people somehow,” sighed Saché, “get them out of here. A blast like that and the foundations of this place aren’t even reliable. Glose, can everyone here be moved?”

“I think so,” he said, from where he was finishing up with his main patient.

She knew then she was going to split them up again. It still wasn’t something she trusted doing, but the truth was trying to be ringleader to a group this big left her unable to think straight. “I want Yané and Rorerrie to lead a small group to search the city for any more survivors; the rest of us will try to lead these people out of here. The first group will be in more danger, so I want volunteers.”

All of the handmaidens and half of the men stepped forward. Latt took another step forward, and she saw his eyes beg. “Very well, then, Briné, Coté, Ardré, and Latt.” Which meant the militia men would outnumber the handmaidens, but either Coté or Ardré might still prove invaluable for finding people, and Briné would probably be needed when they did. “Good luck,” she said, squeezing Yané’s hand, locking eyes with her, hoping the younger girl could take the strength from her to assert herself as a leader. Poor Yané had to wrench herself away as the others began their way back down the stairs.

It took longer for the larger group to disembark; both the injured old lady and the girl without a hand were unsteady on the feet, and even with an assistant to each they moved slowly. The former especially had trouble with the stairs; at one point Saché feared there were going to have to pick her up and carry her down. However, she got down in the end, and they hobbled over the rough, debris-strewn floor. She led the group out of the city the same way they came in, knowing it wasn’t too long a walk and one they could all manage, even of both of the elders were looking pale by the time their feet hit the grass. “It’s all plains in the area, isn’t it?” she asked Losté. “No shelter anywhere?”

“Not for about five miles the other way.”

Their group couldn’t manage that distance, not in the civilians’ current condition. “Then we’ll have to do without it for the moment. Keep close to the city and if we hear any overhead ships, we go still, and hopefully they won’t bother looking too closely at us, think we’re debris or something."

As if on cue they heard in the distance the faint whirr of a STAP. Glose, who was standing next to one of his two main patients, quickly yanked his other one over and sat them down. Most of the others sat down too; Saché did so herself. She hadn’t known if her idea would actually work, but it looked like they were about to find out.

As the high-up ship came into her field of view, and seemed to be floating above them without any initial reaction, at least, her thoughts went from their safety to that of any other survivors who might be out on the plains. From mid-air they’ve be the easiest targets in the universe, and if there really was so little shelter in these plains, there probably wasn’t much she or anyone else could do to protect them. Thinking about those lives, which she might not be able to anything to preserve, made her want to cry.

Determined not to cry in front of the men, she instead pulled out her blaster, and examined it. She wasn’t exactly an expert on this brand the way she was the pistol she’d been issued which had been taken away from the Federation, but she was pretty sure it needed cleaning. She tore off another part of her gown and started rubbing, but that wouldn’t get the job done completely. At some point it might be a good idea to steal new weapons, if they got another opportunity. Or maybe she should ask Yané for advice when she got back.

That led her to wonder how many refugees Yané and her little group might bring back with them, and how they were going to get them anywhere if there was a large number of them, especially if it started raining. Could they return to the Rashoon? Or could Losté guide them somewhere else?

Of course, that assumed Yané would bring back anyone. And as they watched, still unable to move until the STAP was out of sight, while a building that had been burning too long caved in and slumped to the ground, the loud thud it made echoing to them and long past them, she found herself doubting it.


	9. The Survivors of Julika

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The handmaidens rescue who they can, and take them all to shelter.

Before today, Yané had thought she’d seen wreckage and ruined cities. From the time she’d been very young, too young, her mother had said, but she hadn’t stopped it, her father had taken her with him on many of the trips he’d taken off planet to sell his wares, and though when she’d been younger he’d tried to shield her from the uglier side of the galaxy, there had been slipups. And when she was ten he’d taken her to Nar Shadda, thinking her old enough to deal with it then, and she still remembered burning walls and charred remains and the smell of fear, for things had happened her father had desperately hoped would not happen on that trip, and while no actual harm had come to her her view of the universe had been forever changed.

Now, it was changed again. To think once she’d been so foolish that when she’d looked at the sewage of that moon and wrinkled her nose, she had thought this kind of thing could never happen on Naboo.

They found plenty of dead people before they found any signs of life. In most cases there wasn’t even much they could do when it came to the bodies, half of which were crushed under immovable blocks of sandstone and granite; the beautiful artwork of Naboo’s civilization had been used against its people to devastating effect. They had been dead long enough for the smell to set in, especially on the warm, summery day, and Yané wanted to retch, and when she stole glances at the others, she saw none of them kept a straight face, and Yules Latt appeared almost faint.

When she first heard the whimpering, she thought it was her head playing tricks on her. But then Ardré said, “Stop, I hear something.”

“I hear it too,” said Rorerrie. “Sounds like a woman. In there.” He didn’t even need to point; they were all turning to the charred remains of what had been a normal-sized private home, the garden of which they might have been standing in; the wreckage was so scattered it was hard to tell where the road ended and people’s yards began.

If they’d had any doubt, a moment later they heard a plaintive voice say, “Please wake up, Mesia, please...”

Which made them all relieved when, just before they reached the door, they heard an infant’s wail. A moment later the implications hit Yané; they had a baby that needed to get out of the city immediately.

Meanwhile, Latt said softly, “I think I know her.” They heard a hysterical sob, and he broke into a run. Part of Yané knew she should call out to him to be careful, but she didn’t even know what use that would be.

They caught up with him in what looked vaguely like a family room, throwing aside blocks of wood that had piled up, behind which they could glimpse a flash of sea green garment and black hair, and more pointedly, they could hear both her and her baby’s cries.

There was a cracked couch in the way too, and it took all of them working together to pull it aside. When at last they had dragged it back a few feet, a whole pile of wood collapsed around them, opening up the far side of the room.

It was actually less damaged; the walls were all intact, though the windows were broken, and the computer panels smoked out. But there was a toppled display shelf, under which was yet another crushed corpse, and next to it, clutching a wailing baby, was an olive-skinned woman who looked only a little older than Rabé.

“Kya!” It was only at Latt’s exclaiming her name that the young mother reacted to the arrival of rescuers, and Yané saw no recognition as she took in the young man. “Don’t you remember me, Kya?” he pleaded. “It’s Yules Latt! You used to be friends with my sister Tordé, when you two were both at school.”

“Yules Latt?” She wasn’t in much of a condition to consult her memory, but after a moment of so it seemed to come to her; she nodded through her sobs.

Yané took charge, stepping carefully over what debris was on the floor. “Ms. Kya? We need to get out of here. It’s not safe.”

“Where is safe?” cried the young woman, and she had a point Yané couldn’t deny.

Still, she said, “We need to get where it’s safer; this place could finish collapsing at any minute. Come on.” She placed her hand on the woman’s back, and Kya started to walk forward.

Yules took hold of her shoulder. “Come on, Kya,” he said. “I’m in the militia now. I can keep you and your new baby safe.”

She was starting to calm. The baby was another matter, though, continuing to crying, despite her feeble attempts to soothe it. It was horrible to hear, frightening with the sounds of collapsing still around them, but there wasn’t time to do anything about it. She looked at the others. “Ardré, could you lead these two out to the others?”

“Others?” squeaked the woman; she sounded like she didn’t believe them.

“Yes, Kya,” said Latt. “We’ve got a whole group outside the city.”

“Come along,” added Ardré, though maybe she was a little too rough as she hooked their arms together; the woman flinched, and her baby started crying harder.

But they had to move quick; the walls started to crash down behind them as they broke into a run. Five steps out of the house and they heard the loudest groan yet, and a thud so great it had to be foundations themselves falling to the soil. Kya let out another breathless sob. “Don’t look back,” Yané said immediately. “Don’t look back.”

She didn’t. Ardré moved her hands to her shoulders to further discourage her from turning around. The baby continued to wail as she glanced at Yané, who nodded at her, and she steered Kya down the debris-ridden street. “Look forward,” Yané heard her say. “Don’t look to the sides.”

Yané felt the wish to go with them. But instead she turned the other way, and looked down the line of other houses in various states of ruin. Her eyes fell on a corpse in the doorway of one stucture two doors down; it looked like the frame had given and hit the poor guy as he’d been trying to get out. “Latt,” she asked, “what are the exact dimensions of the town? How far do we walk before the closer edges will be on the side, and it becomes more likely survivors will flee that way instead of down this way.”

“It’s really hard to get out from the sides, the way the town’s arranged. But actually, I’m not sure everyone will leave the city. A few more blocks and they might think they’d have a better chance to reach the park in the center.

“Can you take us towards that park?”

“If there are no blocked roads...”

The streets certainly weren’t clear. Not long after they’d resumed walking they found one house blown apart so violently the great bricks were piled up upon each other all across the road, and they picked their way over them, Yané’s skirt nearly getting caught on one of the jagged edges. They saw no one else alive; instead they saw dead ones sprawled in the middle of the street, jagged pieces of marble and sandstones and roof tiles on or by them in such places as to make clear they had met their death out here on these streets. But there was nothing impassable, and in fact, as they walked on, Yané thought the level of the pillars of smoke in her line of vision started to decrease, the fires burning out. For some reason that made her heart clench all the harder, whether in anxiety or just sadness she didn’t even know.

Shortly before they reached the park Ardré caught back up with them, out of breath from running, but it definitely was strange how quickly she'd moved, especially considering her injuries. Yané was too grateful to care.

Sardié’s Green, as Julika’s park was called, was just big enough that when the group turned into its entrance beyond a large smoking superdome Yané couldn’t quite see the end, though she could see the line of buildings, one of which was still on fire. More importantly she could see a small but thick knot of people gathered in the middle, sitting besides a pool of water that might or might not have been a fountain normally.

There were faint cheers when they were spotted, and an middle-aged man came to greet them. “Uri Harjoril,” he introduced himself. Yané recognized the name; the Harjorils were like the Lasaras, a locally powerful family. “Are you a handmaiden to the Queen? We’d heard she’d fled Naboo.” He did not sound pleased at the notion that she had.

“She didn’t want to,” she told him. “She only did so at the urging of the Jedi. They came here to negotiate, the Federation tried to kill them, I think, and, well, I guess that convinced them the Federation would try to kill her too, because they insisted they would. She requested they take her to the Senate. Maybe appearing in person will get something out of them.”

“She is young yet,” sighed Hajoril; he didn’t sound like he’d put much faith in the Senate. But he sounded like he would forgive her ultimately, and he also sounded like he knew better than to ask for any of their names. “I don’t suppose most of us would be much good in a fight, but if you want us for anything, we will follow your lead.”

“Thank you,” she said. “We need to get all the survivors. Do you any notion of where any others might be?”

“I know where they aren’t,” he said grimly. “We were the people who hid when the battilions came to herd everyone else out. Between us we cleared out most of the back half of the city, except a couple of corners, before the bombing started. There were 34 of us originally. Including my sister Retaé; the rest of our family was taken.”

That she wasn’t emerging out of the crowd said enough about whether Retaé was still alive or not. “I am sorry,” she said. “We must rescue any survivors in the front half. Do you have anyone willing to go with us?”

“Miss,” Latt spoke up. “Can I stay here and help these people out?”

“Yes, absolutely,” said Yané without hesitation; she wasn’t sure what he could do, but it felt right to leave someone here.

“I’ll go with you.” A girl strode out, clearly barely older than Yané herself, if that. Which actually made Yané hestitate for a moment; they needed steady minds and maturity for these actions. But they also needed all the help they can get. Especially when she knew from her gestures Briné was staying behind too after assessing the wounded.

The girl’s name was Tiwden Minnel, and she certainly knew the city, and particularly knew its electrics, because she’d been studying for a career in that. She was quick to tell them, as she led Yané, Rorrerie, Coté, and Ardré down what she called Mardolé’s Road, that Julika had one of the best and safest systems on the planet, and had that missle hit any other town in the immediate area, the damage would have been far worse. On further pressing, though, she admitted there was a catch. “If anything happens to the power plant,” she said, “we’re all in serious trouble. We’ve got it in the northeast corner of the city, and its protected by a tough alloy wall which must have survived the blast, but might be vulnerable to melting.”

“Let’s head there, then,” said Yané. “We can look for survivors en route.”

As it happened, they received news on the plant before they got there. They had turned onto the lane that led there when a group of three young men appeared on the far side and broke into a run when they saw them coming. “Tiwden!” cried the closest of them. “Thank all the old gods we found someone in time! The wall’s melting down!”

“Flarg!” Tiwden swore. “Flarg flarg flarg flarg flarg!” If there had been any doubt to the seriousness of the situation, the way she went from cocky assurance to positive terror knocked it out. She then drew it a breath, and asked, “How close is the nearest fire? What’s the temperature? Do you know, Garth?”

She addressed one of the other two guys as she asked this question, and he shook his head in answer. “The meters are all offline,” he said. “About half of the cells are powered down, but there’s a fire besieging the north wall, pretty widespread; I don’t think that can be stopped.”

“That’s not nearly enough,” said Tiwden. She looked away from them all for a moment, Yané noticed her hands were shaking. “Okay,” she turned back to address Yané. “You have to get back to the square,” she said. “You have to get back there as fast as possible and tell them to get moving southwest. If it gets too hot you might not even have time to get out of the city limits, but if I can get a few more of the cells powered down, you should be able to get far away enough. With a little luck, I might be able to do enough to keep most of the city from the initial explosion, but there may be radiation issues, so unless I can actually get them all shut down, you’ll have to keep moving after the explosion. I’m afraid anyone we haven’t found it’s too late to look for.”

“Wait a minute,” Yané cut her off, horrified as she realized what the girl was saying. “You think there’s going to be an explosion that will kill you, and you’re going to...” She couldn’t finish it. She just couldn’t.

“I have to.” Her voice broke as she said it, and tears sprung from her eyes. Helpless rage washed over Yané, that this child had to die, and it was obvious she was the only one who could to preserve everyone else, if this Garth person, who apparently knew something about the plant, couldn’t manage it.

With an “Oh Tiwden,” the first boy to speak embraced her tightly. She let him for several long moments, and Yané realized it was her job to direct them apart, because there was no time to lose. With everything she had she wished for the first time ever she wasn’t a handmaiden at all, but someone else who would never have to be so cruel, and then took hold of Tiwden’s arm.

The girl pulled away from her friend quickly enough. “I know,” she said, looking away again, but her arm moved in a obvious move to wipe her tears away. “I’m going. Run back. Run!” And she ran, down the street, down towards the plant, down towards death.

“Come on,” Yané forced out as she took off, and the others followed, but ten seconds later the three newcomers were all lagging, and though she’d gotten into a state where she no longer noticed her own pain, the running was causing it to flare up again as they stopped she couldn’t keep from bending over, clutching at her battered side, gritting her teeth to keep from moaning.

“I think Ardré should go on ahead,” said Coté. “She’s the fastest here.” She obviously was completely unbothered by her injuries, so Yané nodded at her, and she was gone like a blink of light. She was able to pull herself up then, but she knew already the run back to the park was going to be agony.

It was, and as a group they still weren’t able to go very fast; Coté kept having to stop to wait for the others, until Yané wondered if she shouldn’t tell her to go ahead too, just in case something went horribly wrong and the plant blew up before the slower ones could get far away enough.

But they were close enough to the park, all in all, to reach it while the crowd that had been there was still in sight. They were all panting hard enough by now they were easily heard, too, and from the rear Ardré detached and came back. “We’re going in two groups, one of fast movers, the other helping out the slow ones. Latt’s with the first group; they’re going to carve a path out of the city and circle around to join everyone out in the fields. We’re following at what pace we can manage.”

“Not nearly fast enough, no doubt,” growled Rorerrie. Yané really, really wanted to slap him.

Instead she turned to Coté, and asked her, “Can you do any...”

She shook her head. “Shut down right now. Sorry.”

With all the wounds and deaths of Julika, that was only to be expected. But even so, Yané felt the disappointment slice through her, their last hope of saving anyone else gone. She felt like a total failure then. But there wasn’t time to feel much, not if she wanted to keep these people alive. “Then let’s go.”

They were well enough out of range when the explosion came, though they felt the force of it, the very ground below them shaking as the roar filled their ears. Yané kept her feet steady and forced herself to look back. Most of that corner of Julika was up in flames. The entire city might burn down before anyone was able to stop it.

**Sometime after**

When they saw the explosion from the camp, things got briefly out of control. From the horrified words of Julika’s inhabitants, it seemed a power plant had probably blown up, which if it went badly enough, could render a huge section of the city unhabitable for years, if not longer. Certainly something had blown up big enough that it could have easily killed the other handmaidens. Vatié took out her communicator, since it wasn’t impossible the groups inside the city could find some device with which to contact it, but maybe the possibility didn’t even occur to them, especially if they were in a hurry to get out before the radiation really started getting bad. At least, that was what Saché told herself as she paced around the perimeter after things had calmed down, waiting.

Yules Latt was maybe the most welcome sight she’d ever seen in her life when he arrived with then other people, even if he didn’t have any of the handmaidens with him. Though it was not he who greeted her first, as she instead was introduced to Uri Harjoril, who took charge of confirming the power plant had melted down, that some poor young woman had gone there to keep it in check and essentially sacrificed herself to save the rest of them, and that the handmaidens should all arrive with the second group of wounded.

Having over twenty refugees with them made the need to find cover urgent, and the impossibility of it more likely. Saché found herself soon contemplating the need to appear strong versus the need to get away from them all long enough to be able to think.

At least Uri Harjoril was a well-known and respected figure in Julika, and his appearance calmed the group they’d fetched out earlier a great deal, and the handmaidens and militia soldiers were even more cheered by the assurance that the other members of their group were alive and well. And when he had talked to most of the others, he drew Saché aside and said, “I know of an underground zip block storage facility not far from here. It’s possible, of course, that the Federation has found it, but if we want to move these people somewhere safer, it’s probably our best bet.”

“Okay,” said Saché, trying to hide how overwhelmingly that relieved her. “As soon as the second group gets back, then.”

But first there was the issue of the wounded to deal with, and she took aside Glose for an update. “This group can mostly move,” he said. “There’s one man I don’t think could walk very fast, and one little girl who would need to be carried by someone-if she lives to see the second group arrive.” He gestured to a limp form laid out on someone’s dirty cloak, looking only about five years old, two women kneeling over her, one of them with her shoulders shaking. Saché tried to wrap her mind around the sight, only to realize she couldn’t afford to; she was too close to breaking.

So she went over to the man when Glose pointed out to her. He appeared to be middle-aged, though that might have been because his face was scrunched up in pain, and his left leg looked like it might be in a very bad way.

When she knelt over him, she had to angle herself as he struggled to unscrew his eyes, and she almost didn’t want to ask him. But she said, as gently as she could manage, “Sir, we must soon get moving to shelter. We will have to go as fast as possible.”

“You should leave me behind,” he croaked out; it clearly was worse for him to have to speak. “Save yourselves.”

Ené cried it out when Saché could not afford to, “Oh, what if there are more of him out of the city?”

“We’ll have to go in two groups if there are,” she replied, loud enough for everyone to hear here; Ené had wailed the question and gotten everyone’s attention. “One of us will travel with them.”

“I volunteer,” said Mothemi.

“Very well,” said Saché, though she wasn’t entirely happy about leaving Yané to possibly have to deal with him causing trouble.

It was a minute or so later when one of the men yelled he could see Yané’s group coming out of the city, and when she looked where he pointed, Saché could too. “Everyone get ready to go,” she ordered. Everyone responded, but too slowly, staggering to their feet and looking around in confusion as if they were suddenly expecting battle droids to come charging from some unknown direction, or weren’t sure where Yané’s group was supposed to come from. Saché wished she had some way to prod all of them at once.

It was enough to make her almost sick with anxiety by the time they finally were all up on their feet and starting to shuffle after her and Harjoril’s lead. At least Yané’s group wouldn’t be far behind them at all now, certainly always able to keep them within sight and follow their path. But Saché didn’t look back to see when they reached Mothemi, out of worry that thinking about how beaten up they looked and how vulnerable they would be likely to be would cripple her with fear and leave her unable to think straight. She was aware that the others, handmaidens and militia soldiers both, were keeping a good lookout as they formed a perimeter around the group, but she herself had to keep herself facing forward, looking where Harjoril told her to as he guided them off the flatter part of the grasslands and into rolling hills that made her feel too much like a target at the top and not much safer at the bottom.

But it was at the bottom of one of these hills that the entrance to the storage facility was hidden. It actually hadn’t meant to conceal its existence from anyone; it had just tucked itself in under a small mound of moss and lowbush to as to remove any unsightlyness. Saché liked that, that the devotion of the Naboo to beauty and to disturbing the natural terrains as little as possible had served them in their fight against the Federation. It had indeed; when she and Harjoril together first cautiously poked their heads through the long, narrow trapdoor, and he felt along the storage place’s roof until he had turned on its lights, it was clear from one glance that no one had been there for at least a few days, and probably longer.

It took time still to get everyone underground. Even those without any injuries had to be careful descending down the steep, brittle, zig-zagging stairway that led down to the floor where the zip blocks were mostly lined up with a few scattered out of place, and for those hurt it was so dangerous Saché had to remind herself that to not come here would have been more dangerous still. Harjoril had gone down first, gingerly testing each step to see if it could bear his feet, even causing weak cheers to rise from the group when he had made it to the bottom. That left Saché to see everyone else in before descending last, watching as the other handmaidens and militia members helped hand down those not in a state to attempt the descent unaided. She watched Losté carry the little girl, whose name was Tindé; she was still alive.

There was still a small group waiting with her when Yané and Mothemi and their group came down the last hill; if any from the first group had fallen behind, they had been safely absorbed. “No more causalities from us,” was how she greeted the younger handmaiden. “You?”

“None,” sighed Yané, “Yet. I don’t know that anyone won’t perish on the stairs.”

Noone had, however, when an hour later Saché first watched Mothemi head down, then, after taking a last look and seeing nothing within her eyesight, carefully stepped down, closing the door behind her.

Rorierre greeted her at the bottom of the stairs with, “How long do you think we can stay here safely?” He actually didn’t sound hostile at all; the trip with the two large groups had worn them all past arguing with each other.

“At least overnight,” she replied. “I think we all need the rest.”

There were vendors in two of the storage facilities’ connecting passages, selling tiny snacks. Yané and two of the survivors who had had some hotwiring knowledge managed to get them to concede their entire contents, which they divided between everyone as best they could. “Those’ll set off an alarm somewhere, probably,” she told Saché as they munched on pieces of hollis, Saché letting her tongue linger over the chocolaty taste. “Unless the line’s jammed, which is actually pretty likely. Hopefully if the Federation does hear it they won’t be able to figure out what it means.”

“We’ll still have to leave very early in the morning,” Saché noted. “And before that we have to see if there’s anything else useful in the corners and closets down here.”

“There’ll be water somewhere, I think. I hope.”

There was, as they discovered an hour after that, a large bin of it, which was among the day’s most welcome sights easily. There were enough bottles that that as she considered it along with Rorerrie, who had triumphantly discovered it and shown it to her, Saché found herself thinking they should develop a rationing scheme. He voiced an agreement as she said so, but noted it probably still wouldn’t last more than a day or so. “Maybe we shouldn’t even disturb this bin before morning,” he added. “Everyone just had some liquids from the vendors, after all.”

It was a little harsh, Saché thought, but she had to concede his point. Though looking at those big, full bottles actually made her mouth feel dry.

She almost wished they hadn’t made that decision when they came back to the group, and Vatié was waiting with grim news; two of the wounded had died. “Tull Verine and Mistro Corderrie. They’re debating what to do about burying them.”

“It’s not safe to go outside until we’re ready to move,” said Saché automatically. “Is there anywhere in here that could work, I wonder?”

“Maybe if we blew a hole open in the floor,” shrugged Vatié. “Though to be honest, I think we need to wait. It may be too much to hope for they’ll be the only ones dead tomorrow morning.”

“Would extra water help any of them, do you think?” she asked, leaning in and speaking quietly to keep the others from hearing.

“I don’t know these things,” shrugged Vatié. “I’ll ask our two experts.” Glose and Briné, from what Saché could tell, had been working steadily from the time everyone had come down, barely pausing long enough to grab their portions of the food and shove it into their mouths.

They ended up taking one of the bottles from the bin, though in the end they didn’t even have to engage in much subterfuge; people weren’t paying much attention at this point. After they had already been exhausted by their ordeal in Julika and then had to walk a considerable distance to shelter, over half their group had already gone to sleep despite the relatively early hour. Even those still awake were mostly just sitting or lying around, talking quietly to each other or just crying. The two dead bodies had been moved to one corner, though Saché only knew they were there because of the thick knot of people gathered around them, blocking them from the sight of everybody else. All relations and friends, she wondered, or had some people felt the need to pay their respects to those they had never known anything about when they had still lived, but were now their fallen?

She herself gave water to little Tindé, a woman who might have been the girl’s sister or maybe just someone who’d taken charge of her-she knew her parents had been killed in the bombing-holding up her head to help her drink. “Her skin’s so hot,” she said; her voice was ghostly. The girl was wrapped up in blankets-there were cots kept in one of the back rooms-covering up her injuries, but her audibly struggling with each breath she took showed enough.

When most of the people were asleep, she took Losté and after a moment’s hesitation Rorerrie into an empty room and said, ”Suggestions for where we take all these people tomorrow?”

“Let me go talk to Kladi,” said Rorerrie. “I think he mentioned to me someone had an idea, and it might be as good as any.”

Hock had dozed off on his feet, leaning back against the wall, but Rorerrie gently shook him awake, and when told what they wanted, he nodded, and said, “I met with a guy who used to work here. Old guy; I forget his name. Let me find him.”

It took him a while, but they finally found him and his equally aged wife fast asleep in one corner. He yelled when woken up, waking up her and two more people and making everyone immediately around look over in alarm. Losté, who thankfully was still with them, made calming gestures to everyone while they tried to get the man, whose wife addressed him as “Mondie,” cognizant enough to answer their question.

Finally he said, “Ah, yes, yes. Well, what I was telling you earlier, sir, is that there’s an old abandoned tower not far from here. Not unlike something you’d see in a children’s tale, really; seven levels, though not much room on any of them. When I used to work here I used to take Temmy here there after work for some private time, if you know what I mean,” he grinned for a moment, but it faded quickly, “and I think we stashed some old wine there too, though who knows what shape that’s in right now. Might even be some water there, though I wouldn’t rely on it.”

Even the possibility of water spoke in the place’s favor, and Saché said, “If you can guide us there tomorrow...”

“We should be able to,” said Temmy, with the same brief smile her husband had bourn earlier. “I don’t think either of us will ever forget the way there from here.”


	10. The Tower

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They find two boxes in the tower, and search for cover.

Most of the group woke up to the heartbreaking news that Tindé had died during the night. Saché was the first to do so, she was shaken awake by a crying Yané a few minutes after the child had breathed her last and Briné had announced her heart had stopped. She was up to watch Yules Latt reverently carry the body to where the other two corpses had been placed and lay her out besides them. “At least she’s our only casualty of the night,” was Glose’s report to her.

Everyone was still being roused when Saché conferred with Tindé’s unofficial guardian and the widow of one of the other two people dead, who insisted there be some sort of burial. “Even if we just blast a hole in the ground and throw some dirt on top of them,” said the widow, whose name was Alexé Verine.

“That may be all we have time to do,” said Saché, “and only if we do it now, while everyone’s getting ready to go.”

“Give us a pairs of blasters then,” said Alexé. “We’ll go right out there.”

“Do you know how to fire them?” Saché found herself asking. When the women looked at each other, she called Latt over.

It actually worked out fairly well in the end, as the three of them were at work covering the three dead as everyone else shuffled up the stairs and out, and each of them passed the open grave, and so had a chance to pay their respects, and most as least stopped for a moment or so, though a few looked away, so much pain on their faces Saché, from where she watched everyone exit, though they simply couldn’t bear it.

Everyone still alive could more or less walk, though not all of them could walk very fast. When almost everyone was out, Saché left the last people to emerge without her and went to where Mondie and Temmy were near the front of the group, staring out at the path ahead while talking to each other with such smiles that she thought they had to be reminiscing. But as she reached them, she heard the wife say, “And that was probably where Rolla came from,” and her smile faded.

“Is Rolla still alive?” she asked.

Mondie shrugged. “She and her family lived in Gerra. We haven’t heard from them since the invasion began.”

“From what I heard,” said Saché, “Gerra surrendered without any bombing. You can hope they survive the detention camps.”

Temmy closed her eyes and turned her face away; that might be the best possibility for her daughter at the moment, but it was still a painful one. Then she seemed to steel herself, as her husband said, “Come, Temmy, they’re all out now.”

It was even slower going than Saché had anticipated. Even the people who were perfectly healthy were beaten down both physically and emotionally. Everyone’s feet dragged; nobody responded to her urgings, which she knew were harsh, but she didn’t know how else to urge. Again she contemplated how she was the wrong handmaiden to lead this group.

She was able to realize, when she thought about it enough, that was these people really needed was hope. Hope that they weren’t just running around delaying the inevitable, that they actually had the ability to thwart the Trade Federation at least until the Queen returned with the proper power of the Republic behind her, which many people, Saché was learning, didn’t think it was possible for her to obtain. That hope she herself clung to, and she thought the other handmaidens did, but she wasn’t sure if even the militia men did.

Which of seven of them, she wondered, would be good at giving them hope? Vatié, maybe, with her ability with words? But was she in a state for it, so worried sick over her father?

At one point when she ended up walking alongside Yané, she whispered to her, softly as she could, “They’ll spot us, won’t they?”

“They will,” said Yané. “We can’t run if we can’t go fast. And if we can’t run...”

“...we need to fight.” That seemed at first thought an even more impossible venture. They didn’t have nearly enough weapons anyway, and these people were in no shape to wield them. But then again, she thought, if it was that or death, they might just find strength within themselves they normally wouldn’t. She supposed they could all pick up rocks; there were enough of them around on this terrain. If the battle droids brought ray shielding with them, it might just prove a more effective weapon than the blasters.

When Mondie told her they were close to the tower, she ordered handmaidens and militia men both to have their weapons out. She really wasn’t surprised at all that when the tower came into sight, a tall, odd, very dark grey thing with a fancy spire on top, when she zeroed in, she saw movement near the entrance.

The group had fallen quiet behind her; the possibility of battle droids had thankfully been passed back. “Halt,” she whispered to Yané, and the order too was passed back with surprising efficiency. The handmaidens and militia fighters without even needing a command all came to the front, and Saché gathered to them to her.

“I want two of us plus Glose and Briné to stay back here,” she said to them. “The rest of us go forward and we are going to storm that tower unless there are so many battle droids it’s simply impossible.”

None of them wanted to stay back, though when no one else volunteered Latt changed his mind. Saché considered Ardré as the lowest-ranked handmaiden still living, but no, this was what she was needed for. Ené was more suited for it, so she ordered her to stay back as well, and knew she’d made the right choice when the older handmaiden looked somewhat relieved.

A high hill shadowed the tower, which might even make it harder for the STAP ships to spot them, though they couldn’t rely on that. They had left Temmy and Mondie behind, not wanting to have to worry about their safety during the fight that was likely coming up, but as they crept over the hills’ feet, exploring furrows and rises that seemed to mostly provide too little shelter, Saché found herself thinking their knowledge would’ve come in handy.

Unfortunately, the battle droids at the tower spotted the handmaidens before the handmaidens spotted them, and it began with two blasts shot at them. One missed all together, but Saché felt the second singe her skirt even as her brain yelled at her to dodge before they fired again. Their first round of return fire they were all running for the nearest furrow, no one was aiming and everyone missed. Saché found she was much more unsteady on her feet than it made sense of her to be.

They tumbled into an unexpectedly deep ditch, skidding down, their feet sliding on dirt, colliding into and falling on top of each other. One of the guys cried out, as if he’d been hit, and Saché wasn’t even able to figure out which; there wasn’t time. “Let them come to us!” she yelled, and certainly nobody objected.

The droids were coming to them. They weren’t as audible on the grass but she could tell that, and that there were more of them than the two who had first fired on them. “If they all come out from the tower and here we’ll be done with them much quicker,” she growled, but by her side her words generated a frightened whimper. It could have been masculine or feminine, and she had no idea whose it was, and deliberately didn’t look in the direction of it.

She did think it was Rorerrie who said, “If I’m right, the best time to fire would be in seven...six...”

Saché consented by taking the countdown up with him, as the heads of the droids came within her sight: “five...four...three...two...one...SHOOT!”

She hit the head of her target, and she saw several more blasts hit home, but not all of them even within her sight went down. They fired the second round as return blasts hit them; Saché didn’t hear any more cries, but she felt the heat as several of the droids fired at the top of the ditch, trying to force them out of their hiding place; it was like a large flame held right in front of her face, or like what had actually struck her face during her youngest years, which was suddenly very hard not to think about, even with the battle going on around her.

There were no more droids in her own line of sight, and from somewhere else in the ditch she heard possibly Ardré say, “Three more left standing.” Then she heard someone else cry out, and on impulse she popped herself up out of the ditch, to see for a split second one droid close to the ditch and two more together a bit further away, before she had fired straight into the torso of the close one and some instinct brought her squatting back down, two blaster bolts soaring harmlessly over her head. Someone near her yelled in what was clearly pure alarm, but others acted; there was another smattering of blaster fire and then Rorerrie called, “That’s it; we’ve taken them all down.”

“Yours was the final shot,” Drosos Merine said to him as they rose, and several others, handmaidens as well as his men, nodded. Saché herself nodded purely in acknowledgement, then without pausing between rising and striding forward headed for the tower.

“There are probably others waiting in there,” she reminded the others once they’d all fallen in behind her, Yané and Rorerrie somehow materializing near the front. She took a look at the rest and noted the burn high on Jan Kloiterrie's collarbone; he had been the only one hit. “Be ready.”

Sure enough, when they reached the broad tower door, which was a non-automatic one on hinges, and Saché and Rorerrie together shoved it open, two more bolts flew right out. They’d shot too quickly, Saché thought as they returned fire, before they could’ve hit anybody. As a result they hit nobody before they heard two loud clanging thuds from inside of both droids going down.

“How many more left now?” Hock wondered out loud as they burst in. There were no responding blasts, so it seemed there was no more on the first floor, as least.

It gave them a chance to survey the room. There wasn’t much in it. Near them were a pair of metal tables that were all marked and scuffed up like there’d been computers on them recently removed. On the other end of the room sat a pair of boxes. Half of the floor was covered with dirt and straw and possibly some stones, but nothing that looked metallic, at least in the limited light.

Saché went over to the boxes and tried to get them open, but they were sealed tight and it would take time; they needed to make sure the rest of the tower was clear first. “Upstairs,” she ordered. “Blasters at the-” But she was cut off as a bolt flew past her and hit one of the two boxes straight in the middle; the heat was nearly searing as the box was fried. The battle droid toppled off the stairs as Yané shot him down. “I think there’s another one,” said Rorerrie, and there were several moments’ tense pause, before a second one did indeed appear; it fell before aiming, hit by multiple blasts.

“Good thing that first one missed,” commented a dazed sounding Lexi Tenil.

“It didn’t,” said Yané grimly. “A shot like that, with that kind of blast, from that kind of blaster? It was trying to destroy whatever’s in those boxes.”

“Get the other one out of here then,” Saché ordered. “Obviously if they don’t want us to have it it has to be important.”

She looked at Rorerrie, aware he probably knew how strong his own men were better than her. She wished she didn’t see the flash of a smirk from him, but it was gone quickly enough as he ordered, “Mothemi, Arthi, take it out and get to a bit of a distance. Arthi, stay guard over it while Mothemi comes back in.”

Both men grunted as they picked up the box, and as they began to slowly lug it out Saché went to the stairs and started up them, as it occurred to her that if there were any more droids left in the place, they might try to destroy anything else that might be of use, and it would be good to try to find them and shoot them down before they decided to. The others followed, Yané ending up in front of Rorierrie on the narrow staircase.

There turned out to be one more droid left, on the fourth floor, which like the third floor had little on it. They heard its footsteps from the floor below and took it down easy before it could fire a shot.

On the fifth floor they found a pair of basins. One of them might have originally held water, but the liquid in it now was so fouled up it was useless. The other, one the other hand, was filled with dried food that still looked old, but still good. “We need some bags or something,” commented Yané.

“Or something with which to cut our skirts,” said Saché. “The two of us would probably move better if our skirts were cut to the knees anyway.”

They ended up using a foot from the battle droid from the fourth floor, which turned out to be very sharp. Saché stuck it into her belt afterwards for later use. The skirts had already been ripped in places, mostly near the bottom, and part of Yané’s had blaster burns, but they managed to sew up two bags and fill them with the basin’s contents. Saché would’ve liked it more had she had some faith they could reuse them without them falling apart, but as they descended the stairs she still felt a strong satisfaction; the mission to the tower had been a success.

Arthi was still standing guard over the box when they came out; Saché noticed some blaster burns on it, as if he’d attempted to get it open that way, but there hadn’t been many, since he’d obviously wanted to avoid damaging whatever was inside it, and he hadn’t seemed to try anything else to get it open. Which was unfortunate, since she was aware it was going to be very hard to move it anywhere as it was.

She looked up at the sky; it was around noon. It was actually a little hot out; she wondered how close they were to the equator. She didn’t want to leave the box alone, but she also thought it might be easier to carry it once the heat of the day had passed, and they didn’t have to all stay with it. “I want two volunteers to stay here with the box,” she said. “The rest of us will bring the food back to the others and see if they have anything for opening boxes.” Rorerrie volunteered, of course, as did Losté, which pleased Saché, since the older handmaiden was probably most suited for it anyway.

As they made their way back she couldn't help the fears that the group had been attacked, that a group of flying droids had come down with blasters, or something like that. But they were all still there more or less as they had left them, most of them sitting or leaning against rocks or furrows, too many of them not really responding at all to the sight of their leaders’ return-a few of those briefly eyed the bags, only to clearly lose interest quickly.

But Briné, Ené, and the two militia men hurried up to them, and when Saché explained the situation while Briné worked on Kloiterrie's burn wound, Ené immediately said, “I might be able to crack that. Let me have a shot at it, anyway.”

When Losté saw them return, she immediately exclaimed, “Ené! You really think this box is some sort of machine?”

“It’s worth my looking at it, anyway,” Ené responded, and she knelt to examine the box. They watched as she felt her way around its sides, her focus mostly lower down, and then suddenly grinned. “This,” she declared, “is an Estuarine-designed lockbox. I’ve seen this type before.”

“She has a bit of a hobby sometimes,” Losté explained softly to Saché. “Gadgets, mostly, sometimes droids, she gets interested in. Takes them apart to see how they work, usually.”

Saché only asked in response, “So can you get it open?”

She seemed to consider the question, then said, “I would need a J-liner, probably, but then it would be nothing.”

But none of them had a J-liner, and while apparently that was a relatively small, simply tool, Saché, at least, hadn’t the foggiest idea where they could got to get one. “Until we can find one,” she said, “we’ll have to keep the box with us. Meanwhile, we have to gather to decide where we’re going next.”

When they returned to the group, they did spend a little bit of time inquiring to make sure no one happened to have a J-liner in their pocket, but of course no one did. One person, on hearing about how heavy the box was, suggested it be buried somewhere to keep it safe until someone could come back for it, but between the time that would take and the feasibility of sending someone back before the Federation found out it was missing and went looking for it Saché quickly rejected the idea.

By the time she had gathered most of the handmaidens and militia men together to make their next move, afternoon was well underway and everyone was wondering how much longer they could stay in one place out in the open like this. “That we’ve been spotted by now there’s no doubt,” said Kladi Hock. “It’s only a matter of time before an attack comes. We need to find some sort of cover.”

“There’s not much around here, though,” said Latt. “I’m afraid the closest thing to cover around here is Piyoeré. That’s a tiny village which I think we could probably get to well before sundown. But of course...”

“Something that size,” mused Lané, “would they bother keeping many battle droids there?”

“If they expected we were coming there,” pointed out Vatié.

But no one had a better idea, and it no doubt occurred to all of them that there was as good a chance as any that there would be a stray J-liner left lying around somewhere. If it came to hiding the box, too, one of the militia men suggested it could be stashed in one of the houses. “Surround it with other boxes,” he said, “hide it in plain sight, maybe, that can sometimes work really well with droids.”

“Or not at all,” said Yané, “but Federation droids are the type where I think it would. If we only knew their exact programming...”

It was eventually decided that everyone would take turns carrying the box for half an hour at a time, two people per shift. Saché and Yané took the first shift together. By the time they had finally gotten everyone moving and were ten minutes underway, Saché’s arm already felt like it was falling off, her shoulder was so strained she thought it might break this way, and even when their slow pace worried her she was grateful for it. They weren’t really capable of leading the way either; they had to leave Rorierre to do that, which he did, as Saché thought through the haze of strain and pain that he ought to still be subordinate to the other handmaidens according to the militia chain of command, but they could not afford a dispute over it that afternoon. Besides, it was harder to think how to tell him that politely when it was so hard to think about anything besides the current dire state of her arm.

Though as their half an hour at last approached its end according to Rorerrie’s chronometer, she said to him, “A leader of your caliber ought to accept a shift with this burden sooner rather than later,” which of course got him to volunteer. For the next half hour he was the one who trudged with the box along with Mothemi, while Saché and Yané took up the head the group, though at one point Briné joined them to examine their arms. Her spirits were further increased when Piyoeré appeared in the distance as a pale structure up above the plains, and Latt was quick to confirm it was the village, and it didn’t look too badly damaged.

When Coté offered to take the next shift, Ardé immediately said she would take it with her, and that Briné and Glose along with the injured Kloiterrie should be exempt, an idea that the others agreed to readily enough. Though as the two of them lugged the box along, though Coté found she preferred not to try to speak or do anything else besides take each step forward, Ardré kept the strength to talk, leaning in to whisper, “When do you think your senses will come back?”

She shrugged. “Tindé’s death sent me way back, I’m afraid. More than deaths usually do, I think.” She desperately hoped Ardré wouldn’t ask her why. She didn’t want to talk about that with anyone ever, how much the girl’s pain, strong enough that she’d felt it faintly in her final hour or so, had reminded her of what she herself had already long suffered at her age.

From the other handmaiden’s sharp eyes, though, Coté knew she would ask sooner or later. But at least she didn’t then, just saying grimly, “If we go on like this, that won’t be the last death,” and falling into silence as both of them contemplated the awfulness of that.

Arthi and Hock took the shift after that, and Vatié and Tenil the shift after them, followed by Losté and Ené, then Latt and Merine. Then finally as Lané and Tenil finishing their half hour with it, the distant buildings started to finally become close. Saché supposed the inhabitants had probably surrendered without a fight, because their home was very clearly unscathed. It also left her very strongly convinced the place at the very least wasn’t deserted, and there was a good chance Vatié was right that they would be expected.

When they were in the city’s shadow and flirting with blaster range Saché again ordered the group to halt and called Yané, Losté, Ené, Ardré, Rorierre, and three more men of his choosing to follow her in. Ears perked and fingers were at the trigger they walked into the village, which was worse than walking into the tower, because small as it was as towns went, it was still ten times broader a space, with more places for battle droids to hide behind.

But when the first weapon flew out from a concealed assailant, instead of blaster fire, it was a rock, and it flew straight over Tenil’s head and collided with the blaster fire that did then come from behind the group.

The droid who had fired was fried by Latt behind it could get another shot off, but Saché was quick to realize the implications of its position. “We’re surrounded!”

“Wait!” A human voice called from the direction the rock had come from. “There aren’t as many of them as you might think. I’m not sure where all of them are...”

He’d taken too long to explain, the other droids had opened fire. He was telling the truth about number at least; only five blasts. Behind her Saché heard two cries, but no falls. They returned fire as best they could, but the disadvantage was theirs, with the droids hidden behind the buildings. She thought they might have hit two of them, but there were still three more blasts, and this time when there was a cry it was followed by a thud. Guiltily she hoped it was one of the militia men; the cry had sounded vaguely masculine.

Another rock flew out, this one aimed for the top of a spired squared structure that might have been the village’s tallest building, and they saw it knock a battle droid from the spire. Yané shot it just to make sure it went down. The other two blasts had come from the same place; a white clay wall no doubt surrounding the courtyard of a private residence; the others focused their fire on that. The rocks started going in that direction as well, though when the wall started to melt they were of less use-until Tenil suddenly yelled, “Throw the rocks onto the top! We need to make the wall collapse!”

The rocks landed on the top as Yané aimed her pistol down and started firing at the wall’s foundation points. The others continued to try to shoot at the droids around the wall’s no longer solid corners, and they might have hit them, for only one droid was still returning fire-completely blindly, Saché thought, since it wasn’t hitting anyone, when at last the wall groaned and fell back, crushing the last of the droids against the grass.

Her first thought was for the wounded; she turned around and hastily joined the others as they clustered around Losté, Rorierre, and Mothemi. The first two had new burns on their shoulders and neck, but were quickly brushing off attention, focusing it on the third, who was down on the ground, bearing wounds in his chest that made Saché wonder if there was any chance left; though by the way Latt was holding his pulse he clearly wasn’t dead yet.

Their helper had emerged; it was a ten year old boy with a weird black ponytail, dressed in a fairly simply tunic and leggings. Saché turned to him and said, “If that’s all the droids left in the village, run back out and tell Briné Salmune and Hadri Glose they’re needed.”

He obeyed, and she didn’t think he was the fastest runner but he came back with them soon enough. Briné took charge of Losté and Rorierre; she still had been carrying a bacta pack in the folds of her robes all this way, and they both looked impressed as she got it out and got to work on the burns. She’d also given Glose what looked like an unopened one, but as he examined Mothemi he shook his head. “If he were to have any chance,” he said to Saché, “it would have to be in a proper facility.”

“We have a medical house,” offered the boy. “The Federation took a lot of stuff out of it but they might have left the bacta tank behind. Anyway, I didn’t see anyone carrying it away.”

“That’s no good unless they left at least some bacta behind too,” said Glose. “Still, lead the way, Master...”

“Kells Srchulek is my name, sir. I think I’m the only inhabitant of this village who wasn’t taken away by the battle droids; I hid from them. Right this way.”

“Bring the others in here and start figuring out how we can hide people,” Saché ordered Yané. “And have someone dose out those fires; the less attention this place attracts from the air, the better.”

She herself followed Glose and Kells Schulek to the medical house, an ordinary-looking white square house from the outside, though she did not like the vague smell of smoke. Inside she recognized the setup of a small hospital-not the first one of those she had been in either after her youngest years, except that the furniture was all removed, and most of the equipment. The empty bacta tank was still there, though, and to Saché’s uneducated but somewhat experienced eyes all the important cables looked to be intact.

Glose looked too, then knelt to examine something lower down, where Saché had never looked. “We could probably make this thing work,” he sighed. “But it would take some technical rigging, and then we’d need to find enough bacta to fill it, and I don’t know if Tollo’s likely to last that long!”

“Try it,” said Saché. “We’re not giving up on anyone until they’re dead. And even if this doesn’t save him, having the knowledge of and preferably keeping the control over a working bacta tank could easily save many others later.”

She emerged to notice for the first time that the light was really starting to fade-were they further north than the day's heat had suggested? Also to the sight of enough people to make her feel everyone was now within the village limits. Unfortunately, neither Yané nor Briné were among those she could see, though Coté, Vatié, and Losté were. She doubted any of them knew much about bacta tanks, though, and she thought perhaps some of the other militia men might. So she went to them first.

But it was while asking Hock that she instead got an answer from the elderly woman next to him, who cut in with a, “Excuse me, but I know how to operate a bacta tank, though it’s been more than a few years since I did last. Let me look at it.”

Her name turned out to be Losain Perine, and the grin she made when she saw the bacta tank made Saché aware of how much she had wanted to see someone smile. “Just what I used to operate!” she exclaimed. “That’s lucky, you know; this tank is actually considered obsolete, and I don’t think there are that many of them still around. But obsolete still works when powered right. They should have an emergency generator in here, right?”

There was one, and Saché found Glose and Schulek examining it along with two more of the militia men. Unfortunately it appeared to be shorted out. “We should get the power back on in the town,” said Schulek. “I mean, I don’t know what you people intend to do next, but personally, I think it would be a good idea to set up base here.”

“It’s an idea worth considering,” said Saché, who hadn’t thought that far ahead yet, though she was aware she probably should have already. “But if a big battle droid army converges on here and traps us, what would our chances be?”

“Not as bad an you might think,” he argued. “Not if you use the resources we have here in Piyoeré. We’re actually a town of experimental engineers, you see, or at least a number of us are. My friends Tosi and Slyvé Minnel, for instance, I know they’ve been working three years on this firework generator that they’ve been testing with other explosives already, so I know we can use it for them, and I don’t think the Federation took it. And I know someone else who was developing this mass sound generator, one that can create false sounds all over the place at once, which I think would confuse any bunch of battle droids. And then there’s my own project, which I don’t know how much use it can really be, but if you feel a need to suddenly make something really hot, I have a device.”

“I’ll consider all that, then,” she answered him. “At the very least we’re staying here overnight, and anything you know about that could help us defend ourselves in event of an attack would be welcome.”

Indeed, she thought about it for most of the next hour, as she monitored attempts by those among their group that had at least minimal knowledge about such things attempt to restore power. Could they really run forever? She didn’t think they could, especially if they kept picking more people up. But the thought of making them a still, sitting target was almost scarier.

But in the end it wasn’t entirely her decision, or even that of anyone else in particular. Instead she called together Briné, Coté, Lané, and Yules Latt, and asked them to go around and get from people what they wanted to do. “Don’t spend all night doing it,” she said to them. “Everyone needs to get at least a little sleep at some point. But try to have some good information in the morning. Or at least find out if anyone stumbles upon that J-liner.”


	11. A Pair of Visitors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two new men arrive at the village.

Lané and Yules Latt went around first, passing through most of the town’s buildings together; as a restless Coté tried to sit quietly on the town’s main street, she saw them talking to people all over. She would go around when they were done, when there was even a possibility, if a remote one, that she’d be able to get more from them than just their words, at least if noone else died within the next few hours.

She wasn’t all that surprised when Ardré came along and plopped herself down beside her, then asked, “Are you holding up fine?”

Her response was a shrug. “Are any of us?”

Ardré leaned in close and said softly, “Being disconnected from your senses, I mean. You may be hiding it well, but I know how awful it is to be outright blocked from the Force.”

“For you, maybe,” she said. “But I endured it plenty of times between the ages of five and thirteen.”

“FIVE?!” This apparently shocked Ardré so much she yelled this right there in the middle of the crowded street. And because they were pretty much the leaders of everybody at the moment, that meant everyone in hearing range was looking at them. Including Lané and Latt, and the former looked very disapproving. That made sense; they all knew the image they projected right now was important.

And there was nowhere to go, really, no place in the village that was likely to be empty, and to run out to beyond the buildings just to have a private conversation was probably irresponsible. They both knew that, so Ardré just said, in her previous low volume, “We are going to have to talk about that a lot when all this is over. Meanwhile, I do have one piece of advice, though I have no idea whether this will work or not even if it can be managed, and I’m not sure right now it can, and that’s to try to seek out the company of anyone your mind might be most comfortable around. I know you’re not used to having such people; I remember even when I only had one such person in my life, I think staying closest to her for prolonged period of times really helped my senses increase.”

Was there anyone, Coté wondered? Maybe spending more time in company specifically with her fellow handmaidens, especially Briné, whom everyone always felt more at easy around, at least when she was in a good mood.

But the chance of her powers returning grew a lot less likely, when only moments after Ardré had said this, Arthi came over, grim-faced, and said to them, “Tollo Mothemi is dead.”

“I’m sorry,” Coté said automatically, but he barely nodded; he was already moving on. She watched him make his way over to Lané and Latt, and break the news to them. Latt bent his head down, and leaned heavily into the arm Lané offered him, even as she continued to walk him along, saying things to him to try to get him to keep going.

“We should go pay our respects,” said Ardré, and she was right; he had, after all, been their fellow militia man. So they got up and headed for the medical house, where they believed Mothemi had been taken, and presumably breathed his last.

Losté and Ené ended up falling in silently with them as they walked. They didn’t need to talk; it wasn’t like either pair had any doubt about where the other pair was going. Ardré and Coté ended up getting a little separated as they half-lined up in order of their militia rank and seniority, but Coté found she didn’t mind at that moment. It felt like she was walking slightly back in time, when she’d been a militia private rather than a handmaiden, for it was as that that she now acted.

He had been taken outside, and placed on a makeshift bier of rocks, with what looked like a pair of slightly burnt tablecloths under and on top of him. Over him stood Rorerrie, just staring down, as if he was having trouble comprehending it.

Ené spoke: “It is hard to lose a man, isn’t it?”

“Of course,” he said. “I thought I heard mention that you girls lost one of your own as well?”

“We did,” said Ardré, and she went into details about Moré, emphasizing her assistance to Briné, which made Rorrerie sigh and say, “Wish she’d been here, then. Though I suppose it wouldn’t have made much different in this case. They don’t tell you about this, you know. And I mean, I hope you don’t get upset at me for pointing this out, but your Moré died quickly. They don’t tell you that sometimes those killed quickly don’t die that way. That there can be a long stretch of time where you feel you have to try to save him, and you  _can’t_....” His voice was starting to shake.

“Don’t be ashamed for trying,” said Ardré. “Never that.”

“I’m not,” he said, in that same shaky tone. “Although it wasn’t me who tried anyway, of course, it was our two medical people and the old woman, but, well, you know what I mean. I just...I just don’t know...”

“I don’t think there’s anything to know,” said Losté, very gently. “You did everything right, and so did everyone else, and he still died, and that’s all there is to it.”

The other militia members were arriving now, Hock and Merine, and then Kloiterrie, and then Arthi returning, Tenil with him. Each in turn put their hand on Rorerrie’s shoulder, and Merine and Arthi both murmured things to him, maybe more of what the handmaidens had been trying to tell him already. Whether it took or not Coté was unable to tell.

From inside the hospital there had already been coming a faint din of work still being done, but while they were still standing there, they suddenly heard a cry of triumph, and then a whir and hum, and Losté spoke the obvious: “They’ve gotten the generator to work.” She turned towards the door and went inside; the other handmaidens followed, as did Arthi and Tenil, and, after a moment’s pause, Rorerrie.

The place was crowded, aside from Saché, Briné and Glose, the boy Schulek, and Losain Perine, there had also been five more people that presumably had held at least some of the needed knowledge about power or mechanics. But the lights were on, and so was the bacta tank, though it didn’t have any bacta in it. “How long would the tank need to have bacta in it before it was fully operational?” Saché was asking Perine.

She considered. “Not as long as you might think, though probably at least three hours.”

“Since we have no patients who need it right now,” said Saché, her voice low but calm and collected, “then we don’t need to hurry with the bacta, especially since we don’t even know if we’re staying here or not.” Taking notice of the newcomers, she addressed them, “About that, do you have any information so far?”

“Not yet,” Coté told her, “but I think Lané and Latt should be done with the first round of questioning people within the next hour.”

“Good. Rorerrie, Tollo Mothemi was essentially your man; do you know if he had any particular requests about being buried?”

Rorriere shook his head, saying, “No, but Drosos Merine might. They were very good friends, I believe.”

Now that she knew that, Saché also wanted to offer him her particular condolences, so she said, “Come with me back out to him then?” He looked glad for the request, as she’d hoped.

Outside, the handmaidens and militia men had started to fall away, returning to tasks they had to do, but Merine was still there, sitting against the wall with his hands on his knees and his head bent down, though he didn’t appear to be crying. When Saché quietly spoke his name, he rose his body without raising his head. “I am most sorry for you loss; I understand you and he were close.”

“We were, in our way,” he said dully. “Though right now, I just wish I’d known him better.”

“Then you don’t know what his funereal wishes might have been?” asked Rorerrie.

“I think he said once he wanted to be cremated,” he said.

“The fire…” Saché started.

“If it’s only one fire, we don’t have to worry about it attracting attention,” said Rorerrie. “There have been a few fires in some of the deserted villages; my men and I have seen them.”

“But can we burn any of the buildings here down?” pointed out Merine. “Is there anywhere we can even put a pyre without putting them at risk?”

“How far outside the village could we go without attracting Federation attention?” Saché asked Rorriere.

He took a moment to consider. “A few thousand feet would probably be fine,” he said. “But what are we going to build a pyre of?”

They really did need to inventory everything in the village anyway, Saché thought. But before she could begin to formulate plans for that, just then, Latt came running to the group of them, calling, “M’am, sir! There are two men just arrived, saying they represent an organized resistance movement. They want to talk to whoever is in charge here.”

Rorriere looked at Saché along with the others, and she was aware she was under no obligation to take him with her to greet them. She wasn’t sure if it would even be a good idea to; she wanted to establish herself as the undisputed authority in this group of people. But somewhere in her, the thought had formed that after their initial dispute, he had more or less obeyed her, and meanwhile he had been very strong and brave, and he deserved credit for keeping his men together the way he had before they’d run into the handmaidens.

She wasn’t going to take only him, though. “Rorriere, to me. Where’s Yané?”

Yané was fetched within another ten minutes, she and Rorriere fell in and flanked her as she followed Latt through the village to the house where he’d left the newcomers. For one moment as they walked she wondered if they ought to have their blasters out. But it didn’t matter; she was grateful for them both then. It gave her an odd feeling of strength, and she knew it would make her look a lot more in control of everything and everyone than she currently felt.

She found the two men, both tall, broad fellows that didn’t look much older than she was, surrounded by various villagers. Also Lané, who was talking with one of them; Saché thought she heard her mentioning Vatié’s name. But he broke off when Lané gestured to Saché and muttered a quick identification of all three of them to him, stepping out of the small group of people and offering his hand. “Tatton Olié,” he said. “and this is Mart Yolierre. We come to seek and offer help, and to invite anyone who wishes to join our resistance movement. You are the most senior handmaiden to the Queen left on Naboo, I believe? I have been told she has fled.”

“She goes to Coruscant to seek help from the Senate,” said Saché, wondering uneasily what people were thinking of the Queen’s departure, and if they would be angry at her for it. “And, yes, I am, and she left all but her most senior three handmaidens here to fight back against the Federation however we can.”

Thankfully, these two men showed no sign of anger; Olié merely said, “Very well, then. It sounds like we have come to the right place.”

“You have,” said Rorriere. “As well as there being nine handmaidens here, four of which, by the way, also have experience in the militia, I am one of eight militia men who have joined forces with them. The rest of the people here are mostly survivors of the city of Julika, which, if you have not heard, I am sorry to say the night before last was extensively bombed, and I am sure there are plenty of people here, who, with the right instruction, would be happy to fight back against those who have destroyed their home.”

“Very good. Lané here tells me you also have found a working bacta tank?”

“We do,” Saché confirmed. “Would you like to see it?”

“Briefly,” he said. “Then the two of us would like to take you-and you also, perhaps, Sergeant Rorerrie, back to our current encampment to meet our own commander.”

Saché couldn’t say she liked Olié addressing him in this way, as if he was not under her command, but then again, she firmly reminded herself, they would probably not both put themselves under the command of Olié’s superior, so it probably mattered less anyway. Still Yané wasn’t happy either, and didn’t really hide it, as they headed out, and while Lané kept a neutral face, Saché suspected she felt the same way too.

Outside word had spread around enough that a few onlookers had shown up. Yolierre, who had been very quiet indeed, spoke in a tiny voice now, when he said to his companion, “If it was two nights ago, and they’ve been on the run since, most of them aren’t going to be of much use.”

“They’ll be of however much use they’ll be of, and require however much aid they require,” they heard him murmur back, but he didn’t look happy either, especially when he saw how some people were even limping.

Saché wasn’t exactly thrilled herself. She had to decide what was best to do about them, and she suspected that task would still fall to her even if she did come under someone else’s command.

Merine was gone; Mothemi’s body was now being attended by two young women, around seventeen or eighteen, Saché thought. She identified Mothemi to their two guests as they approached, and when he stopped to pay his respects, the two girls identified themselves as Hatcha Folerrie and Hollé Droshierre. When they learned where the two men are from, Folerrie said, “I don’t think either of us would be much good at fighting, but if you can find any use for us, at any time, we’ll always be ready to help, aren’t I right, Hollé?” and the other girl affirmed that she was.

Inside, the scene was much as they’d left it, except a number of things that had been scattered on the floor were now place on higher surfaces, and many of them were now plugged in to recharge their power cells. Briné and Glose both had to worm their way over from the far corner to be introduced. “We’re trying to calculate the minimum of bacta needed for the tank to do its job,” she said to Saché, then to the two newcomers, “you wouldn’t happen to have some, would you?”

“We can see about bringing you some,” said Olié, “although we, like you I assume, must be careful with our supplies. And I assume if we do aid you with the bacta tank, you will treat our people in it.”

“Of course,” said Briné, clearly confused as to why such a question would even need to be asked. Glose did not look confused, however, and perhaps was thinking the same thing Saché was: it was all very well to say everyone would be treated, but with only one tank there would soon be the question of priority.

Now wasn’t the time to ask it, though, and Olié then said to her, “If you want any more medical supplies, your commanders will be coming to meet ours, and I am willing to take back a list.”

It took a few minutes for Briné and Glose together to make one, during which another thing occurred to Saché, and she said to Olié, “Sir, I believe we should perhaps also be accompanied by another one of my band. As Rorriere told you earlier, four of them are in the militia, all are still officially active members, and Ardré Kartik is actually by seniority the ranking member of the militia among all of us.”

Olié’s eyes immediately flew to Rorriere, who looked decidedly away; it seemed it might be a big deal that he had not disclosed this right away. That, Saché realized, was not good; the last thing they needed right now was any sort of trouble among themselves. And now she felt the threat of failure leap up and menace her, because she had no idea what to say to fix this situation, or even if it was a good idea to say anything.

It was fortunate, indeed, that Lané was still there with them, and she said, “Yes, we tend to forget that, don’t we? We are so used to the following the rank of the Handmaidens that we forget the lowest-ranked of us still alive is the highest-ranked by other standards-although that, of course, is because both of our little groups have suffered losses at the hands of the Federation already.”

“You lost someone?” It had definitely been smart of Lané to mention that; it helped distract Olié. “Allow me to give you my condolences for her. How did it happen?”

Saché was able to take over there, telling them about their blowing up the museum in Theed and how Moré had been fatally shot. Both men had enough questions about just how they’d blown the museum up and how much they knew about how things currently were in Theed(she wished they knew more), that it gave their two medics more than enough time to come up with their list and for them to get out of the hospital. Saché noticed that Rorriere lagged slightly behind as they did so, and looked like he’d been punched.

A great part of her wanted him to stay there, and that way. She especially found herself thinking that Olié might be right to find fault with his not being honest about his rank; she knew well honestly on all points was needed in the militia, just like it was needed among the handmaidens. But at the same time, he had already been in command of his group when they had met up with theirs, and his men had been looking to him, and that didn’t count for nothing.

It was enough that when she feared he might fall out of the group completely and not accompany them back to the resistance, she said, “I do want Sergeant Rorriere to come with us.”

"If you do,” said Olié neutrally. “But I want Ardré Kartik as well, if you don’t object.” Saché wasn’t going to fuss about that.

“This is not an easy journey,” he said to her, Yané, Ardré, and Rorriere when the six of them stood at the edge of the village together. “We came most of the way here on a pair of speeder bikes, and ones lengthy enough that there is easily room for the four of you on them also, but they are currently hidden in the Roosted Rocks. Our priority in this journey is to avoid being traced. If we were traced to where we are going, the results would likely be the death of all of us, and the loss of any hope of the Trade Federation being driven off by any forces left on this planet. Therefore we will do  _anything_  to prevent that. Do the four of you understand what I mean, when I say that?”

“You mean the six of us have to be ready to be shot down, as an alternative,” said Saché, deliberately beating Rorriere to it. She did feel a protest within her, when she saw how pale Yané looked then, and remembered how she wasn’t even thirteen, and she even briefly wanted to command her to stay behind. But she didn’t flinch; none of them did, and Saché felt it was somehow too late for that, that both of them had to go, or it was somehow a display of weakness.

“Exactly,” said Yolierre. “We’ll be at greatest risk of it during the walk, but the risk remains throughout the trip.”

“And if at any time we think they are letting us live, so that we can track us, we may even have to provoke them into shooting. Although at least then we have a reasonable chance of making them think they’ve killed us. But in short, if at any time I tell you I believe any ships above or any droids nearby have spotted us, the rest of you must do exactly as I say. Do you all promise to do this?”

“Promise,” said Saché, glancing over at the other three, and feeling much relief when they all promised themselves.

“Very well, then. Follow me.”

Ten minutes walking out in the grass, and if it wasn’t for his words hanging over their heads, it wouldn’t have felt that different from what they’d already been doing, although it was less worrying when there were only six of them. Then they moved into terrain that had more rocks in it, allowing them to dash from boulder to boulder, sometimes spending as much as five minutes crouched in the shadows of them when they heard a whir above.

The Roosted Rocks were a fairly well-known landmark, a group of rocks that formed a structure big enough to easily hold a dozen people, possibly carved by Gunguns, or possibly by the “second wave” of human settlers who had come to Naboo from the Kanz sector two centuries after the main wave of refugees from Grizmalt; scholars debated it. It was also surrounded by large rings of flowerbeds; all the rocks had been removed. The six of them took it in while standing by a slab covered in the graffiti of visitors. “Run when I say,” said Olié, “and fast as you can.” Saché moved herself down into a crouch, thought about the training camp, the sprints they’d done sometimes through swampy waters. She liked the notion that the three of them just might outrun the three men.

“Now!” Olié yelled, and as one they sprang forth, feet pounding over the flowers, eyes locked on their destination. Her hope about their being faster didn’t come true; Ardré could only keep up with the three men, and she and Yané staggered behind. Olié kept glancing behind him, but he kept nodding as he ran; at least they were going fast enough.

But when they were halfway to the Rocks Yané suddenly slipped and hit the ground. In her haste to get to her feet she stumbled again twice, and by the time she started running again she was further behind. This time, when Olié looked back, he shook his head, and Saché felt dread fill her beyond anything she’d felt so far.

He didn’t say anything until Yané had been the last to reach the Rocks, under which the STAP ships at least were unlikely to spot then, but by then he had gone to where the bikes were pressed down into a crevasse and pulled out a scanner, and he shook his head. “They saw her,” he said.

“So what happens now?” asked Yané, terrified.

“For now,” said Olié, “we stay here, and see how they respond. They may think the group of you are here.”

“They’ll send plenty of droids, then,” murmured Ardré.

“Or will they it might only be me?” said Yané, even more quietly. “Only one target.”

“If we can keep them far away enough from us,” said Olié, matter-of-factly, and Saché felt her sickest yet.

But then Ardré said, “How good a look did they get of her? Is it possible that if they found one of us visible, and don’t get close enough to detect those of us hidden in here, they might not realize that person and Yané aren’t the same person?”

He looked at the device again, tapped a command, then said, “They probably only got her height. But they probably got that very accurately, to within an inch, a couple of inches at most.” He took a look at Ardré and shook his head; she had at least three on the rest of her fellow handmaidens.

Saché and Yané looked at each other, each very aware of how alike in body they were, having both been chosen to be alike to the Queen, after all. “Saché,” breathed Ardré, “forgive me for asking this question, but do you think Yané would be able to lead us?”

There was a single, terrible moment, where all Saché could think was she absolutely could not be that cold and calculating, while also knowing that she might have to be. She knew then that order would never come out of her mouth, but it was clear it would come out of Olié's if he felt it necessary.

Then the next, they heard a buzz fill the air, and before they could react to it, Yolierre said, “Do you think you could make me a hood out of your skirts that would fool them?”

“It probably would,” said Olié, looking over the skirts dispassionately. “I’m afraid your modesties would both be compromised, but I assume you wouldn’t mind, under the circumstances?” All Saché could do was shake her head. To speak now at all was impossible. “We have about five minutes. Yolierre, as soon as you’ve got the hood on, just pop your arm out first, then your head, and then shoot. Despite your belief on the matter, Sergeant Kartik, I don’t think they’ll necessarily send very many droids, but Yolierre will have to shoot them down by himself if…” He didn’t say the rest. He didn’t need to.

The colors were such that the cloth had to be cut from the tops of the dresses; Saché and Yané’s backs both were bared as they hastily threw the two pieces of orange cloth over their imposter, trying to place them in such a way that they wouldn’t slip and fall. Meanwhile, Olié has his eyes closed, and looked like he was focusing on the increasing volume of the buzz. “Three droids, I think they’re sending, maybe four, five at most. That means there’s a chance…the rest of you, get back further into the Rocks. I’ll stay just behind you, Yolierre.” Saché suppressed her urge to protest; she had to remind herself she was not in command anymore. It was harder than she’d thought it would be.

The buzz got so loud they knew the droids had reached the rocks, and from there it all happened so fast Saché didn’t even know exactly what happened. There was blaster fire, and then Olié was racing back to them with a limp Yolierre on his arm, his head so burned by blaster fire he looked terrifying, but clearly still alive. “There’s just a chance he’ll live,” he told them, “if we can get him to the others and our medics alive.” Or to Briné, Saché thought, but clearly he wasn’t willing to go back that way and let any droids spot them. “Sergeants, I assume you can fly the N7 model?”

“All three of us can as well,” said Saché, as Rorriere nodded. “We learned as part of our training.”

At least Olié didn’t looked that stunned, or maybe he just didn’t care. “You take his bike then,” he said to Saché.

He and Rorriere carefully balanced Yolierre between them, trying to talk to him, but while his eyes were open and moving he didn’t seem to really hear them. The three handmaidens piled together onto the other bike, Yané holding tightly to Saché as Ardré settled in behind them. This version of the N7 was actually slightly fancier than those they’d used in training camp, but the basic buttons and levers were the same, and as Olié powered up and his bike took position in mid-air, theirs easily followed.

He shifted forward, and they fell in behind them. They could see Rorriere trying to hold Yolierre up, and that he was getting blood on him. “I wish one of us had the ability to help,” sighed Yané, softly enough that only her two fellow handmaidens could hear her.

The Roosted Rocks had developed underground a surprisingly large group of rooms which were mostly used for administration of the park and storing of maintenance supplies. The entrance was within the rocks, and Olié maneuvered his bike through it, the handmaidens following. The place ran on its own power generator, so the lights turned themselves on as they came in. “We actually found a few people hiding down here,” Olié called to them. “We had a third person with us who took them back to camp. We dug our way in at one end; hopefully the hole will still be there.”

It was; about ten minutes later they emerged into a vast canyon, one Saché didn’t know the name of, though she thought the river they could see at the bottom was the Naker. Except that the waters of the Naker weren’t supposed to be that brown; she could only speculate how angry it would have made Briné to see that.

They did not go towards the river, however. Instead, Olié led them upwards. “There’s a gap in the rocks,” he called to them. “It’s a bit long; I just hope we can get through it before the light starts to fail.” Because the sun was getting low where they were, and Saché supposed that would help them evade Federation detection, but she wasn’t sure it wouldn’t cause her to crash into anything.

Darkness engulfed them about half a minute after they entered what felt less like a gap and more like a tunnel. In it, she was all too aware of the sounds coming from the bike in front of her; the roar of both engines wasn’t quite enough to drown out the combined whimper/gurgle, and the tiny, “Please, hold on,” from Rorriere. It meant he was still alive, Saché told herself. She wished she could be sure the sounds weren’t that of his last moments. And then he quieted, and the three of them on that bike were flying through the dark, their perception of the bike ahead of them limited, although as well as the sound of the engine there were less than pleasant smells floating back to them, and Saché was too aware how at that moment she had no idea where even she was, really; this wasn’t a part of the planet she knew well at all, she was starting to lose track of time, or even the speeds at which they had been going so far, and she was now far too helpless and reliant on someone she didn’t even know that much about.

It suddenly was becoming hard to breath, or hold on to the bike’s handlebars, or focus on steering. A distant part of her desperately protested  _THIS CAN’T HAPPEN NOW_ , she couldn’t lose things completely when in the company of these people, but another part could only think it was a marvel it hadn’t happened until now. The metal beneath her hands was getting more and more slippery, she was going to let go into another moment, but she was also sure they were about to crash, or she was about to cry, or fall off, or scream, or do the wrong thing and get everyone killed, or get her father to break out the prodder again or worse-

Another pair of hands seized her own and pressed them down, another pair of arms guided them; it was no longer she who was steering. Yané’s body pressed harder against her back, and she whispered, “Breathe, Saché, breathe. Don’t worry, I’ll steer. You’ll be fine. This will pass. You are strong and good and your family will never lay eyes or hands or anything else on you again. Everything will be okay. We will reach the Resistance and we will fight against the Trade Federation and we will win and they will go away. Just keep breathing, breathe until you know I’m right. Breathe, breathe, in and out, in and out…”

Saché was breathing. Her lungs hurt, everything hurt, and with each breathe out she wasn’t sure she’d get the next one in, but she was breathing. “The tunnel will end,” Yané was saying to her, just as she thought about how much she needed it to, she needed to be out in the open space, she needed to be able to know where they were going, even with Yané now doing the steering she still needed to  _know_ …

And then they were out, and they must have been going downward, because they were deep into the next valley, which wasn’t a small one, and yet was filled to the brim with people, people mostly in law enforcement or militia uniforms, but some in civilian clothes as well. Including a woman who at the sight of them burst out of the group of people standing nearest, and Saché recognized her as Yané cried out, “Ma!”


	12. The Resistance Movement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Saché meets with a local leader, and a hard decision is made.

It was fully dark by the time word had passed around about the new arrivals, Yolierre had been taken off in possibly dire condition but still breathing, and the rest of them were taken to the local leader. At the moment, they were told, all the leaders were local; there was no one person directing everyone on the planet fighting the Federation. That made Saché wonder whether she should really defer too much to this one.

It was only to be expected, she supposed, for a week-old resistance movement. From what the second-in-command, a man who looked in his twenties named Avon Verderrie, said as he led them across the valley, this group seemed to be one of the bigger ones currently in operation, but they couldn’t be sure even of that, because so far they had only met in person with one group besides Saché and her people.

“We’ve got a secret radio network,” he explained to her, Yané, and Ardré. Found a low frequency the Federation’s equipment is too cheap to find and jam. I suppose they might eventually find a way to block it, but for now, we are in contact with eight other groups, scattered all across Naboo.”

“Have you told the rest of them about us yet?” Yané asked.

“Not yet,” he said. We try to restrict how many times per day we use the radios, to try to decrease the chances of the Federation discovering the signal. Once you and Major Watté have finished talking we’ll send a message to the group closest to us, and they’ll pass it around at intervals. We’ll probably provide you with a radio, too, especially if your group chooses to remain apart from ours, and try to fit you into our signaling schedule. We’ll also give you the general locations of the groups; some of them are more mobile than others.”

As they walked, they were all taking looks around, but Yané most of all. She had managed only the briefest exchange with her mother, before she’d gone off with Yolierre, during which she learned her father was with one of the other groups, but Saché thought she was holding on to hope that she might see someone else she knew.

Major Jass Watté was much, much older, with grey hair and the body of a man who had spent his entire life in shape, although he was still only an inch or so taller than Saché. His hand when he shook Saché’s reminded her uncomfortably of her father’s, and she couldn’t hide that entirely, though thankfully he misinterpreted her reaction and said to her, “I understand this has been a trying day for you, and you must find it startling to learn this resistance movement has formed without your even knowing of it, but you are nonetheless welcome here.” His tone was actually a little condescending; Saché might have disliked it had there been room in her for such a reaction then.

“What exactly have you been doing?” she asked. “I know you don’t know everything the other groups have been doing, but can you give me some idea of how much damage you’ve caused the Federation and where?”

“Our groups have different purposes,” he said. “We, like you, have been focused on rescuing and gathering those who have escaped the roundups and have been hiding in the cities, and also in the mountains and similar. There are even some areas of the planet where the Federation hasn’t thought to look for people; there have been hardy and generous inhabitants there who have offered us all the aid they can give with them. Then there are the smaller groups, which have gone more on the aggressive, either doing raids or sabotage on where the Federation has set up base. Your father, Miss Yané, is with one of those. We have heard daring stories indeed; one of them apparently blew up the Theed museum, even.”

“Actually,” Saché told him, amused, “that was us.”

“It was?” He looked truly shocked, and it only faded a little as she quickly summed up a general account of their activities, though his sentiments on offering them condolences when he heard about Moré seemed genuine enough. “We have not had any specific purpose delegated to us,” she said. “And the various talents of the nine of us left on Naboo are such that we would not all suit one purpose either.”

“Are you suggesting your group be split up, then?” he asked. “Those of you who are suited to helping the stranded could come join us, and the rest of you, and your militia men, could form a fighting squad.”

That had not been what Saché had been suggesting, and she knew it was idea that would make all of them a little unhappy. But it wasn’t a bad one. It would probably allow them to accomplish more than they would if there was only one group of them. It would also allow them to work in tandem with this resistance movement without too much clash-she wasn’t even sure whose authority over the four handmaidens in the militia took precedence, hers or Major Watté’s, though she thought it was probably his, and keeping the two of them separate might allow them to avoid the issue.

But Yané focused on another issue, “But what about everyone from Julika? How are we supposed to get them all here?”

“That is something a group of my people are currently working on,” Major Watté told her. “They might not even necessarily come to us; we might send guides back with you to take them somewhere else. There might temporarily be three groups until that task is done.”

“You’re talking as if we’re definitely splitting up,” said Yané. “Are we, Saché?”

From the way Major Watté was looking at her, it was clear he would only respect her if she proved able to make the decision either immediately or very soon after. It made Saché want to panic. This wasn’t like when Rorriere had challenged her authority; she was too aware that this was a man she absolutely should respect as a superior. That brought the thoughts to her head of inadequacy, of weakness, that she’d kept shut away for so long and had been dislodged by that ride through the tunnel.

Ironically, it was Rorriere who rescued her, buying her time and getting her out of her head with a, “I think among my own men there might also be a split. Certainly Private Latt will want to stay with the evacuees; they are from his own city, Major. A couple of the others too, perhaps.”

“He, at least, should,” said Saché. “But we cannot all, so yes, we are splitting up. How much is another question…”

But that seemed to satisfy Major Watté, who said, “You have time to sort out the full linings of it; I do not think you should attempt to return to Piyoeré tonight, at least not when it will be full darkness soon, and the STAP ships still might be able to detect you even in the darkness; we still don’t know what they’re equipped with. The return party can be assembled and depart early tomorrow morning, by which time we should also have a plan in place for what will be done with the people you’ve gathered there.”

This was not a delay Saché entirely liked, but he was still speaking like the decision was made already, and she suspected to contradict him now would be taken as a full challenge to his authority which she did not want to make. So instead she said, “I do have one more question, sir. Do you know if anyone you have here happens to possess a J-liner?”

 

####  **Shortly After**

 

The J-liner was obtained, and they also met with the quartet of people who had been called on to determine the fate of the inhabitants of Julika. Two of them, Seann Kont and Rosti Borreno, were there as strategists, and the other two, Hagé Julierrie and Juul Farsden, were experts on the local geography; both of them used that knowledge in their normal jobs. They all expressed their regret that neither Latt nor Kells Srchulek nor anyone else involved were there to offer opinions of the decision they would make, but everyone generally agreed the decision still had to be made nonetheless, and the sooner the better. At least as much as it could be made, when Saché was aware that the subjects of it would probably make to her handmaidens what they wanted their contributions to be to it.

All of that seemed to be more than enough for Saché. After they had all been fed some rations, and she was provided with a thick length of cloth and a relatively flat stretch of ground after that meeting, she was happy to lie herself down and sleep after what had obviously been the hardest day for her yet. Ardré and Rorierre followed her example.

But Yané, wrapping her own blanket around herself against the cold, went searching for her mother, anxious to get the chance to really talk with her, and also to learn the condition of the man who had put his life on the line to protect her, since she knew her mother, who had worked for a few years as a nurse when her father’s business had been struggling, would probably be among those taking care of him. It took her a little longer to find them than she would’ve liked; there were so many people in the valley word of their arrival was still traveling to some of them, word of Yolierre was taking longer to reach everyone, and one person even looked at her in confusion when she repeated his and her mother’s names to him.

But there was an area deep in the valley where a makeshift hospital had been set up, and she eventually got there, and there she found her mother too, who had fallen asleep next to her daughter’s preserver. They’d managed to pull together a proper medical staff, Yané thought, or at least a lot of volunteers who were quick studies. As she walked between the men and women leaning over the patients and taking readings, changing bandages, and in one case even doing what looked like some sort of surgery on someone’s upper arm, she felt a little bit of envy for these people, who could help when people were hurt. Not for the first time that night, she wondered how the others would react if she asked to stay here. This was not where her skillset put her, she knew, but it was where she badly wanted to be.

Her mother’s sleep was light; she woke when Yané sat down next to her. She rolled over, propped herself up on one arm, and said, “It’s past your bedtime.”

“My bed isn’t available,” shrugged Yané. “It’s probably been destroyed by the Trade Federation by now. Or their minions are sleeping in it.”

“Neimoidians in your bed,” said her mother, and the implications of that sent them both into tired giggles. “How long would your sheets need to be washed?”

It would probably set a bad example to burn them, Yané thought. But if any of those Trade Federation goons actually had slept in her bed, she knew she’d want to.

She didn’t want to think about it, but now she couldn’t help it. She just bet Nute Gunray had set himself up in the Queen’s chamber, maybe let some right-hand being have the side bunk that could roll out of the wall if the Queen wished to invite anyone else to sleep in there with her. His guards were probably sleeping in the handmaidens’ normal bunks. She thought of the holo of her parents she kept by hers. There was no practical reason for any of the Neimodians to touch it, but they might destroy it out of malice.

“How are you?” her mother asked, and if only there was an easy answer to that. There just didn’t seem to be a word, or even a collection of ones such as  _tired_  and  _scared_  and  _angry_  and  _frustrated_ , to do her current state justice. She just sighed, way too much like she’d had when she’d been seven and mad about not getting her own way.

Thankfully her mother forgave that, and opened up her arms. Yané slid into them, and momentarily felt the urge to cry, but she wasn’t even up to that, really. “What have you and pa been doing?” she asked.

“I don’t know everything your pa’s been doing, Yané,” she said. “All I know is what Major Watté probably told you already. He did send a message back on the radio at one point. I wasn’t allowed to listen to most of it, which I understand contained information they want to be kept to the people who have proper use for it, but he did tell me to hold on and hang in there at the end of it, and they let me listen to that. I’m sure when he hears that we’re in contact with you, if he sends a message again he say something like that for you too.

As for me, I’ve been helping out as I can. Mostly here, of course, but I’m also getting good at carrying things and running about. We’ve mostly been traveling about the mountains, those of us escorting refugees to safety going further afield, although I haven’t been assigned to do that yet; for that they want people who are comfortable out here in the country. But what about you? What have you been doing? Are you allowed to tell me?”

“I don’t know,” said Yané, “but I will anyway.” So she gave her mother a general account of the last few days, finding it was easier to tell the tale when she was too tired to react to it emotionally. Well, except for Moré’s death, she didn’t think she would ever not feel devastated about that, or able to talk about all she had felt then. Besides, it felt so good, then, when her mother hugged her, and even when the rush of jagged pain that came back, as raw and as bad as it had been from the start, it felt more like something she could bear.

“I had a nightmare last night,” she confessed when she was done. “We were running down the plains, and getting ourselves picked off one by one, and there were more of us left over, but we all knew eventually there wouldn’t be, we’d all be killed, and it wouldn’t matter then how far we’d run, because it wouldn’t have any impact on anything. And the bodies kept hitting me as they fell, and wanting to knock me down…I thought of it all, you know, when Yolierre…”

At the mention of her patient’s name, her mother looked over the single screen she had giving data on him, and said, “Mart Yolierre here is currently stable. We think his chances would even be good, if we could only get him to some sort of medical facility, or at least into a proper bacta tank. Though as it is…”

“Did anyone tell you,” and here Yané dropped her voice, since she might have decided to tell her mother everything, but she didn’t want anyone else overhearing this right now, “we have a working bacta tank in Piyoeré?”

“No,” she said, “but I haven’t been listening to much of the talk around me at all. But I would say they ought to then get Yolierre to Piyoeré if they can. We can even help supply bacta for the tank if necessary…I think his chances could be greatly improved even if he wasn’t fully immersed.”

“That’s not my decision to make,” she sighed.

“I will tell my fellow medics about this, though,” her mother decided. “I wouldn’t be the only one advocating for it, and the other militia men will view him as an ideal priority patient. But it really will be very difficult to get him there, won’t it? Traveling there as he traveled here could kill him before you arrived.”

“Is there anything we can do there?” Yané asked, and then felt her eagerness grow as she said, “Tell me everything.”  _Tell me everything you know about everything._  She had never thought much about her mother having been a nurse, especially when she’d long quit by the time Yané was old enough to remember anything. But now the handmaidens needed all the medical help they could get, and Yané was still wishing she could be the one to provide it, but at least she could provide information.

So she listened closing, she and her mother rising to their knees so she could get a proper look at Yolierre’s wounds. This, thought Yané, was one part of being a medic she would not like, having to scrutinize injuries this brutal. But she forced herself to look, and to concentrate, and to listen to what her mother was saying even when there were sentences where she could only understand every other word.  _Whatever I can do to save this man’s life because he saved mine_  ran through her head more than once.

 

####  **The Next Morning**

 

They were up a little bit before dawn. As soon as Saché heard what Yané’s mother had said, she was all for it, and so were their other two companions, and so were plenty of other people who made their voices heard when the suggest was made to Major Watté and four-person strategy group. But he remained silent, and unencouraging, while Farsden said, “I know it sounds like a good idea, but I don’t think it can be done, not without a huge chance of your getting shot down.”

“Although,” said Julierrie, “it would be a good thing to figure out a way to transport large loads between Piyoeré if we can. I’ve been thinking about those mechanisms Schrulek told them about, and I think the resistance could at least make use of the firework generator, though it seems none of you know how big the device is, do you?”

“I’ve gotten a glimpse of them so far,” said Saché; Schrulek had shown her where he had stashed them, though he had clearly not been looking to having to show his hiding place to more people. “The generator is the biggest, unfortunately, about this tall and this wide,” she held her hands out from her knees to her chin, and then a little less distance out, "and I don’t think anyone can even carry it by hand without help. His heating device, on the other hand, anyone coming back here from Piyoeré could easily carry in their hand.”

“Ours would not be the place to take the former to anyway,” said Major Watté, “and it would be best if it could be taken directly to those who would use it. Perhaps…” He considered. “Right now the sooner you get back to Piyoeré and we start moving the civilians out, the better. Olié and another militia fighter will take you back. Meanwhile, I’ll try to contact any nearby groups, see if they’re willing to make the run. Some of them might have gotten better things to transport Yolierre on. Maybe one of them can take Schrulek’s devices as well.”

“I really hope the villagers have decided they want to move out,” Saché whispered to her fellow two handmaidens as they went to deliver the news to Yané’s mother.

“If told there’s a specific safe place surely they won’t object to going there,” said Ardré.

They found her injecting something into a young man who couldn’t have been older than sixteen, in civilian clothes. When she saw the, this time her greeting was, “I’m afraid we’re getting some diseases in the camp. So far nobody’s life has been in serious danger due to it, but I fear that’s only a matter of time.” When she heard Watté’s decision, she shook her head. “The truth is, if he’s not in bacta within three hours, four at most, even if he lives, he’ll almost certainly suffer from permanent health issues. Aside from viciously scarred skin, the kind it would be very expensive for him to mend, he’s got some damage to his internal organs, and delayed bacta might keep them functional, but he’d still at least be permanently in physical pain.

_Because of me_  Yané did not say, but Saché could practically hear it anyway in her reaction. They watched as she hung over Yolierre; it was hard to tell if he was simply asleep or outright comatose. Her mother put her finger to her lips, and her daughter obediently remained silent. Nor did she touch him. Instead her held her hand an inch over his face, one surprisingly not hit that badly by the blast, with no more than some burn marks on his jaw, and stayed there, apparently lost in thought. They ended up letting her until Olié joined them along with a young woman he introduced as Pamé Vollenna.

Thankfully the trip back was devoid of any attacks, either from the Federation or from Saché’s own mind. This time, under Oliés direction, they spent an extended period of time hiding in the Roosted Rocks, during part of which he went off to get an update from his commander out of their earshot, which none of the other four liked him doing at all. “If it has anything to do with…” Yané started, and then shook her head. “I’ll want to know, and why shouldn’t I know?”

“Do they think the Federation might try to take us alive?” Saché wondered. “Do they think it lightly?”

“More likely they’re doing this just in case it happens,” said Rorriere. “Sensible enough, really. Easy precaution to take.”

“Unless he gets shot down there and we’re too far away to save him,” Yané muttered, a remark which Saché thought Rorriere bristled at that a little, especially when he didn’t talk after that.

Eventually, Olié came back and they completed the journey, running their way back through the maze of rocks before coming out to the grass and racing their way back to the city, though it was harder than it should’ve been. Even with having slept plenty the previous night, more than she did most nights, in fact, and even when she’d been prepared by her handmaiden training to do constant and vigorous work, Saché was already feeling exhausted just from the trip to the Rocks.

At one point when they were nearly there her ankles felt so heavy she thought if she hit a soft part of the ground she might sink into it. But somehow, not only did she completely the journey without stumbling, finally arrive to a halt in from of Coté, Lané, Latt, Schrulek, and a crowd of people coming out to greet them, but she found the weird “I am the leader, you must follow me” face she’d become aware she had, and was now more aware than usual she was wearing.

“So,” said Coté. “We will be cremating Tollo Mothemi at high noon; we’ve set up a tiny structure just south of the city, where there are a couple of odd other structures, of which at least one has been on fire from most of the past week; that will do for a cover, but meanwhile, I’m afraid we’ve had to set limits on who gets the attend the funeral; if too many do we will be seen. And I’ve afraid we’ve since had another death, and this one…a civilian woman named Kadé Merorit.”

“It’s my fault,” said Schrulek, looking very subdued. “There was a cable I wanted, it was caught in a house that was damaged, and she tried to pull it out when we thought the power was off. It wasn’t, and she was electrocuted. They’re doing a quick burial of her right now the cemetery, where her family has a plot.”

“Could’ve happened at any time with anyone,” said Saché, feeling her heart go out to the boy. “Meanwhile, I want a meeting with you, and with all the handmaidens and militia men.”

When the basics of their discussion and agreement with Major Watté had been told, the handmaidens all looked unhappy, while the men looked mostly neutral, but at first no one said anything. Then Latt said, “There are more people here who want to fight than to run. Honestly, probably more than we can easily find a function for.”

“Still,” said Lané, “for at least some of them, that’s because they don’t truly believe there is anywhere safe to run to where they could stay. If a plausible safe place was presented to them, they’d change their minds.”

“Start getting the numbers together of all those who have indicated they aren’t up to fighting,” said Saché. “We can at least get word back of how many people we know for sure will have to be taken to safety.”

“We can manage that number being increased a bit,” said Vollenna. “We have already.”

“And for the other part of this,” said Saché. She started making eye contact with each of her fellow handmaidens as she spoke. “I know it is not an easy decision. I know that after all the months we spent together in training and these past four days, especially thinking we lost Ardré in Theed, and then truly losing Moré, it’s going against all our instincts to make our strength in numbers. But if we look at the situation objectively, the truth is we all have our different skills, and the way this fight is setting itself up, those different skills are going to be needed in different places. We’ll be strongest if we divide ourselves up between the different groups. I’m pretty sure were the Queen here, or were Sabé here, they would know that and say it to us.”

“They would,” said Briné softly. “Although Sabé would hate it just as much as us.”

“Is there a clear idea yet of where everyone would go?” asked Vatié.

“We haven’t gotten that far yet,” said Saché, “but I think some decisions are obvious. I think most of our militia members would join some of the smaller fighting groups. I don’t know how much they would be kept together or separated; I do fear that decision might not be left entirely up to us. Briné as a medic I fear would have even less say in where she goes; she’d go where they need her. On the other hand, if any of you have some familiarity with any parts of Naboo the separate groups need to navigate, you may even be pulled away for that.”

“Speaking of which,” said Vollenna, “are any of you familiar with the region of Hoshu-Lianorm?”

Everybody looked at Briné. “That was where I was born and grew up,” she said. “Is that where the refugees are being taken?”

“Temporarily,” said Vollenna. “Although we believe that if the Federation threatens their cities, the Gunguns will flee to the surface and may also gather there. They view that land as sacred, so we’re not sure how they would react to us being there are all. And right now, obviously, we want to avoid any conflict with them. However, that is one of the hardest places on the planet for the Federation to get at. There is not only the heavy swampgrounds, with the vegetation at the thickest it can get in many places, but the terrain itself is very rough, and in such ways that it is difficult for their battle droids to get anywhere at all, plus the humidity damages just about everything they use.”

“Do you wish to be involved in that, then, Briné?” asked Saché. There was a chance, she supposed, that she might actually oppose making use of grounds sacred to another race, despite the situation being what it was.

But she nodded, and said, “Yes. I can definitely be of the most use there.”

This was it, Saché thought. The official start of their group being broken up. She could tell when she darted her eyes around that everyone felt it.

“Before we assign everyone,” said Olié, “I think perhaps we should see what is in the box you were talking about earlier. The one that required the J-liner to open.”

“Do you want me to go do that now?” asked Ené. “It would only take me a few minutes.”

“There’ll be a lot of people here who’ll want to see that,” said Hock. “More than it’ll be easy for us to keep out. Any discussions that followed that might not be that private, unless we come back here.”

“We will worry about that once the box is open,” decided Olié. “For now, lead the way.” He nodded at Saché, which she was grateful for, since with that command he had really just taken charge of everyone.

 

####  **About Half an Hour Later**

 

People had certainly been curious about that box. Half the town’s current inhabitants were already there when Ené began her work, and short as the time was that passed, by the time they heard a final  _click_ , and the top of the box visibly shifted and loosened, most of the rest of them were there too. The handmaidens, militia men, and visitors from the resistance all exhaled, even as two of the militia men moved to shift the heavy lid.

Saché stepped forward to join Ené as the latter stood up, and they took in the contents. “What’s in it?” called someone from the crowd.

Saché wasn’t sure how to answer. There were a couple of things in there which were recognizable enough: a tiny blaster, what looked like a computer bank, and a drawstring bag. But most of the box’s space was taken up by a large grey thing, one which glowed with two deep blue globes attached to one end, and vibrated to the touch. She looked at Ené, who shook her head. She looked over at Yané, and beckoned. The younger handmaiden stepped forward, look at the device, and said, “I saw one of those once, while traveling with my father. It was when we were taking a trip to Corellia, and the passenger next to us was carrying it in a mostly transparent but very solid container. The passenger was from a very big burly species, so he didn’t have a problem lifting it. Unfortunately I still have no idea what it does, but I got the impression from the way he handled it that it is very, very dangerous to touch those two globes when they are any color other than their current blue. In fact,” and she leaned down and examined the bottom, “yeah, it’s fastened into the side of the box, and there’s probably something built into the side to help keep it stable-the one I saw was similarly attached to a section of the container that was opaque metal, and kind of looked like it had some sort of extremely thin computer built into it.”

“I don’t recognize it either,” said Olié, “but we may be able to find someone to identify it. If we can get it to them. That won’t be easy to do. It’s too big to easily be carried on the speeders.”

“We’ve got a thing here called a sledger,” said Schrulek. “Mostly use it in the winter; as you might have noticed, we’re near the Lake District here, close enough that we get a lot of snow, and we plow it and gather it on the sledger. It can carry a lot of weight. But it can’t move very fast. Unless I could try to rig something on it…what’s in the bag? Power cells?”

Yané picked the bag up-it didn’t seem to be that heavy-and carefully opened it, then nodded. “Power cells. Spec-sized. These are the ones typically used for blasters, though they can be used for other things too. I might even be able to help you use them for things. Probably not this sledger, though; I don't even know if they'd work on it.”

"I think they might," said Schrulek.

“Will you come back with us, then?” asked Vollenna. “Most of those cells should probably be taken back.”

Yané looked at Saché. Saché just nodded.

“Good,” said Olié. “I suggest, in fact, that you and Vollenna go back alone, and I stay here until we have chosen exactly who will go where.”

“Agreed, then,” said Saché, and then, remembering Yolierre’s plight, she added, “but I would like it if she came back here as soon as could be managed. Preferably even before the cremation is done. And the more she brings back with her, the better.”

“Give me ten minutes with those before you go,” Schrulek then pleaded. “I know that sledger. I might just be able to get it to move faster. Think of how useful it would be. I swear, I really think I could do it.”

“Yes,” said Yané urgently. “If it's possible. We want that as fast as possible.”

Olié did not looked pleased, but he nodded, and said, “Ten minutes, then.”


	13. Parting Ways

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The resistance has plans for everyone.

When Yané departed Piyoeré with Pamé Vollenna roughly twenty minutes later, their speeder was dragging behind it a sledger currently folded up into a long rectangular capsule, with a jury-rigged anti-grav on the bottom allowing it to float behind them and without using up any of its own energy, a last minute extra idea of Schrulek’s. They had even managed to fit the mysterious contraption onto it, and it was able to bear the weight no problem. Yané had heard tales from some of her relatives of what her father had been like when he’d been young; Schrulek seemed a lot like him, though he seemed more interested in technology in general, while her father’s main interest had always been weapons.

She didn’t know where any of those relatives were right now. Most of them hadn’t even lived in Theed, so her parents hadn’t had any news about them whatsoever, and while her grandmother had lived nearby, they hadn’t seen or heard anything of her in between when the Federation had marched into Theed and when the two of them had made their escape.

She wished she was taking the sledger to her father. Having it closed up while transporting through the Roosted Rocks and underground and into the valley made the job easier, but they still didn’t really know how they were going to come back with it carrying anything as big as a human being. This sort of technology might not have been her father’s specialty, but she’d seen him be innovative with it during some of their trips to other worlds where his wares were far more in demand than they’d been here on Naboo. He might have even had ideas for making the bacta tank work faster; she was aware than even if they got Mart Yolierre to the tank as fast as possible, he still might go beyond saving while waiting for it to become fully operational.

They had one scare, when they emerged from the underground rooms and into the canyon, when they heard buzzing, but it ultimately turned out to be the speeder reacting to the change in air pressure and especially temperature. “These bikes are going,” lamented Vollenna. When they came out of the tunnel, they found waiting for them a man Yané recognized from the makeshift medical center, although she didn’t know his name. “Is Mart Yolierre still alive?” she asked.

“When I left him,” the man shrugged. “You carrying anything besides the big cart?”

“I’ll take the power cells, and see Major Watté,” said Vollenna. “Our strategy team should have a scheme ready by now; they’ll meet you in the hospital.”

She met her mother there, who led her over to where Yolierre lay all too still. “He’s still alive,” she said, “but he’s gone non-responsive. Tell those strategists when they get here this man’s life is in their hands. Either you take him with you now, or he dies.”

His eyes were open. Yané wondered if she should close them; there were as sightless as a dead man’s. He was completely limp. The only indication of his still being alive was a faint rising and falling of his chest.

This wasn’t the time to talk with her mother, unfortunately; it seemed the group had been up to something that had left a bunch of them injured, and she was already gone back to deal with them. Yané was left to sit there, half watching her, half watching Yolierre, waiting, trying to summon words to persuade them to try to save this man.

Vollenna came back with Rosti Borreno, who apparently was speaking for all four. He carried with him two big bags. “I’ll be taking you back to Piyoeré,” he said. “If you insist on taking this man with us, we’ll fit him and these bags on this sledger as best we can, although that means we won’t be able to fold it up, which means we’re going to have to go back to Piyoeré by a different and more dangerous route, one someone ought to travel on anyway, for reasons you’ll know if you need to, but those reasons didn’t give you any need to be on it.”

“I have a different reason, then,” said Yané. “I owe this man my life.”

“So I’ve been told,” he said. “Very well. He needs to be moved out fast.”

Yané’s mother did break away from her other work to help with that, getting him put on a primitive stretcher, and after a glance back at her other patients, she said, “I’ll come with you to the sledger.”

So Yané got to hold hands with her mother as they rushed across the valley, and as the Borreno and another man loaded the vehicle up, after one last examination of Yolierre she hugged her daughter, and said, “Try to come back to me alive. Your father told me he would, and I told him I would, and I’ll try to come back to you alive as well.”

“I’ll try, I promise,” said Yané, and let go of her mother only when she literally couldn’t hold onto her any longer.

She kept herself from crying as they exited the valley, but it was an effort.

“Both to increase our chances of preserving our passenger and getting to our destination alive ourselves we will be going as fast as this device will go,” said Borreno. “Hold on to me as tight as you can. I have heard you are a good shot.”

"Very good,” said Yané. “Although I do admit, while I have some training on shooting from a moving vehicle, I can’t promise I can hit anything if we’re going too fast.”

“Another risk we’ll have to take. I’m starting the acceleration now.”

It went fast. Yané didn’t think it was fifteen seconds later that they were hurtling out of the tunnel and down the rocks so rapidly they were nothing more than a blur. She shook her head; there was no way anyone could hit anything when they were going this fast, until it was something going at a similar speed. She supposed she might not need to hit anything else, though.

They didn’t take the turn that would have led them back underground, though. Instead Borreno kept flying until something green appeared in the distance. “I’m going to take us into the Tuunga Swamp area,” he explained. “It has some of the thickest vegetation on Naboo; if anyone’s tracking us, it’ll be hard for them to keep doing so.”

He had to reduce speed as they approached, the streaks that had been flying passed them slowed down and started to take more form, making Yané more aware of how they’d left the mountains behind them. The last few seconds before the entered the swamp were scary; after such a length of time just about flying, around them the still air felt much thinner, and Yané felt very exposed, while ahead of them, the trees, which she thought might have been on the short side, nonetheless looked tall and menacing, great dark green things with too little space between them; she had to keep herself from yelling that they were going to crash.

But they didn’t crash; they shot between the trees-but not perfectly. Now as they flew they were continually being hit, by branches, by bushes, by fronds, by things Yané couldn’t hope to identify before they were far behind them. All of them felt wet and heavy, none of them felt too soft, and some of them were sharp against skin; soon she had more than one cut. She maneuvered her shooting arm between their bodies; that at least would remained undamaged.

She had seriously hoped no one could shoot at them in here, but ten minutes into it, two blaster bolts flew past, at least nowhere near them; whoever was shooting probably lacked the ability to aim. In an instant Yané had her arm pulled back out-and then it did get scraped at but she didn’t think her skin was pierced-and her pistol in her hand. Even though she had nothing to shoot at.

“We’re going to have to stay in here longer,” hissed Borreno. “Unless you can somehow take out whatever shot at us.” Yané said nothing; there wasn’t much response to that. Fretting about that possibly dooming the man with them would probably only get him mad.

Five minutes later a bolt flew at them; again so wide the shooter probably hadn’t been able to aim, but that would change if they kept coming at them. Borreno tried his best to turn, but his ability to do so in what was now practically a thicket was limited. “It’s no good,” he said. “By the time we see who’s shooting it’ll probably be too late.”

But now Yané could hear a slight whirring sound, not exactly like the common battledroids, but it sounded like they were designed by the same people and ran on similar motors. She recalled what her father had said about them. “Trade Federation tech is always louder when it’s bigger.” He’d only ever used their motors for his tiniest pistols. She closed her eyes; she wouldn’t get a chance to use them anyway. She listened, and then said, “Slow down just a mite.”

“WHAT?!”

“Trust me, do it!” Thankfully he did, and the whir was loud enough now. Yané shoved out the sounds of the swamp, the ones that hadn’t even quite registered, and the slowing down of the speeder allowed her to listen over the sounds it was making too. She zeroed in, pointed her pistol, thought _please_ , and fired.

There was the sound of a small explosion; vegetation near them shook, but they’d been just far enough away not to even feel the heat from the blast. She opened her eyes to see Borreno tapping something on the speeder’s tiny display. “Think that was one of their two-legged hulk-things,” he said. “Probably what shot as us earlier. If you still want to detour, though…”

“I don’t. Especially not if they might have more things in this swamp.”

“That definitely worries me,” he agreed. “But it probably wouldn’t be the best idea to take that on by ourselves. Let’s get out of here. Impressive shooting, by the way. And detection of your target. I wouldn’t have thought a non-militia handmaiden could’ve pulled off that bit.” That was another remark Yané chose not to respond to.

Within the next hour they were pulling into Piyoeré. Glose came out to meet them with two more villagers, holding what looked like a makeshift medical bag. When pointed to the sledger, he climbed on, his two companions following him, handing the bag to one of them, and began giving out orders. There was nothing more she could do for him now, Yané reminded herself, and she carefully leaned over the sides to take hold of and lift out the two bags without disturbing them. They certainly were heavy, but she did it, as Borreno turned to Saché, who had followed closely on Glose’s heels.

“So,” Saché asked him, “What’s the plan?”

“We’re going to split those who aren’t joining the fight into three groups. They’ll all be taken to safe locations by different routes; we have those planned out, and I am carrying them with me in datachits, but we like to reveal them only to those who need to know them, you understand. I understand you have a handmaiden from the Catalin family; we would like her to lead one of them. Possibly Briné Salmune should accompany on the groups as well, as a medic. A couple of your militia men we also want to see involved in this.

The rest of you we think should split into two groups. You two,” he gestured to Saché and Yané both, “would lead them, unless you yourselves think appointing an alternate leader to one of the groups is a better idea. One of them would be small, possibly composed only of handmaidens and militia men from your original group. That would be the immediately active group, the ones we’d send in to destroy small targets and gather information and those sorts of things. The other group would contain those who want to fight but are currently untrained, those you judge would do the best job of training them, and some similar people from our own group. That group would travel into the mountains and to the caves within them, and there will begin training.”

“For what?” Saché asked, and Yané very much wanted to know that herself.

He looked uncomfortable as he said, “We’re not entirely certain yet. You have to understand, we’re thinking long-term. If the Republic refuses to help us, then we’re not going to take our planet back just by blowing up a few buildings and shooting whatever battle droids come to us. We’re going to need an army.”

These prospects Yané hadn’t given any thought to; she’d stubbornly told herself that the Queen only needed to get to Coruscant and she would bring back reinforcements, and they only needed to hold out until then. But from the grim face Borreno was wearing, she suspected he put no reliance on the Republic.

She thought of that possibility, and of her being the leader of a group in the mountains preparing to do things none of them ever imagined they’d do. Things their culture and way of life were dead set against. Not even being sure of if or when they’d do them, desperately hoping they wouldn’t have to.

Panic seized her, made her feel as if her boots had planted themselves in the ground and the rest of her body was seizing up, everything melding to each other and leaving her unable to move. She couldn’t do that, she thought. How could anyone ask that of her? It was only supposed to be extreme circumstances under which she would even take command of her fellow handmaidens, and none of those of them who had been left here in Naboo had really been prepared to lead anything that much bigger. Saché could lead the smaller group, sure, since she’d already been leading both them and the militia men, but Yané wasn’t sure she could do either smaller or larger group, and larger seemed much less likely, and when combined with what they’d be doing…

“…not meant for that kind of long-term fighting.” She’d missed some of what Saché was saying, but it sounded like she too could see that they couldn’t do what this man wanted. “Those of us who trained for the militia, of course, are another matter, but Yané and I aren’t among those.”

“That’s as may be,” said Borreno, “but you know already that doesn’t matter anymore. Not now, when Naboo’s circumstances are so extreme. I know what the Handmaidens are supposed to be, you know. My mother served a Senator as one for ten years. I know you’ve already done plenty you are trained to do, yes; I know you are meant to look like nothing and be everything, was how my mother described it, but blowing up a building? That’s not something Handmaidens merely hope they’ll never have to do. That’s something they never think they will do. This is just another one of those.”

“Blowing up things is easy.” Yané heard her voice come out unexpectedly, was relieved she could keep it steady.

“That it is.” He had a wry grin. “You’ve done the easy stuff now. Time to be brave, smart, daring Handmaidens, and rise to meet the greatest challenge any Handmaidens have ever faced.”

Yané got his point. She understood he was right. But she was still struggling to think past _I can't_.

But Saché’s looked thoughtful as she said, “We should have a militia member as your second in command. Perhaps Coté. I suspect that will be the location she is most likely to be able to use her particular abilities again.”

That made sense, Yané supposed, since it was where people were least likely to die around her and block them out again. The thought of Coté by her side that way, too, was reassuring. “That would help,” she sad, and she felt as well as sounded steadier.

 

####  **Shortly After**

 

Borreno repeated what he had said to the handmaidens and militia men gathered together in one of the smaller houses in outer Piyoeré. The news was accompanied first by the report that they had gotten Yolierre into bacta in time, although Glose warned them that even if he lived, he was likely to be an invalid for a very long time, possibly permanently. Saché also followed him with a speech she had spent most of the intervening time preparing in her head mostly echoing the points he’d made to her about needing to do things they’d never thought they’d do or could do. She didn’t think she made it as well as he did.

Thankfully she didn’t need to, though; she saw in the faces of her fellow handmaidens that they were ready and hardly needed to be told anything. The militia men were fine, of course. This was what they had trained for.

When the suggestions for where some of them in particular would go, Lané and Briné quickly agreed with the suggestions for them. Coté looked hesitant. Next to her, Ardré said, “That would be a new use to put your powers to.”

“Which is what we all are doing, in a way,” Saché added.

There was something about Coté’s expression, though, that made her think there was more to this than just that kind of anxiety. Something that reminded Saché too much of how she herself still so often felt, even when she wasn’t outright panicking.

Part of her wanted to ask what was wrong, what was freaking Coté out. But she honestly wasn’t sure if they even had time to talk about it. She had the feeling it’d be a long conversation, if she was right.

Then Yané said, “We’ll do it together, Coté. You won’t be alone. None of us are ever alone, remember. Not as long as any of the rest of us are alive.” Those were words they’d spoken to each other back in the training camp. They hadn’t needed to repeat them during this while they’d all been together, and they might not now either, if none of them were separated from all of the others.

But they all watched Coté take a deep breath, and say, “You need my help, Yané? I’ll be there.”

“For the rest of us, then,” said Saché. “Latt, I assume you’ll want to go with one of the refugee groups.” He nodded eagerly.

“Do we have a volunteer for the third group?” asked Borreno.

The other militia men looked between themselves. “You none of you want to stay away from the fight, don’t you?” said Rorerrie. “Of course you don’t, I know. But remember, what we trained for was the protection of the people of Naboo.”

They looked at each other again, and then Kladi Hock said, “I’ll do it, then.”

“Also,” Rorerrie added after another moment, “the rest of us should split ourselves between the two groups. If we are to be training an army, you’ll need people who have been in a proper one.”

“I would like that,” said Kitpat Arthi. “Also…” He hesitated, then said, “Sir, if I may make a suggestion?”

“Go ahead.”

“I think you should join the second group as well. Your leadership will be needed there.” He looked nervously as him and Yané both. Saché was pretty sure the latter would make no protest, and the former gave no sign on his face of how he felt about the suggestion.

Saché took a moment to consider it. There was the worry, of course, that he would take over and become the one in charge rather than Yané, something Yané was vulnerable to with her lack of confidence. But she wouldn’t be alone; there’d be Coté, also probably Vatié was a good idea, now that she thought on it maybe even one of Losté and Ené, though probably not both. And she probably could use his help, if it was offered with the understanding that she was the one in charge, especially if this army got large enough that it became difficult for any one leader to handle without some deputies.

“I concur with that,” she said at last, and Rorerrie just nodded, still betraying no reaction. That made her uneasy, but the decision was made, and she thought it the right one. “So you two, also Vatié,” Vatié too nodded, she too might have thought herself suited for this, “and Ené, Losté, would either of you rather join the group.”

The two women looked at each other; Saché was aware they wouldn’t be happy about being separated from each other. But then Ené said, “I will,” and Losté nodded her agreement.

“Let me talk with my men alone?” Rorerrie asked. “Let us talk freely with each other about who goes where?”

She didn’t like it much, especially when they’d done their splitting up right in front of the men, but the men were all looking uncomfortably at the handmaidens, and the decisions they made were ones they probably should make on their own; they knew each other, after all. “Come on, then,” she said. “We should go around and talk to everyone.”

 

####  **Roughly an Hour Later**

 

One of the last people Saché ended up talking to was Schrulek. He had apparently spent the entire day in the basement of the Minnels’ home, which was undamaged, surrounded by a few large devices, and twisted pieces of metal that looked like they’d just been melted. “You shouldn’t ask me to devise any weapons,” he said to her. “I rarely ever even saw one before all this.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Saché told him. “We have a lot of people here who might find use for them. But they may need your other skills.” He listened as she explained the new plans, and finished, “Even if you’re unlikely to produce any actual weapons, I think you should go with the army training group. Keep you out of the line of fire, but where we can easily reach you, and you can easily get anything useful to us.”

The boy looked down, and she, guessing why, said, “It’s not running away. Not really. Remember, my young man, you’re still only ten.”

“Only three years younger than you, right?”

“There’s a massive difference between me and you, Kells Schrulek.”

“Is there?” he asked. “Was your city bombed? Are you scared about what might have happened to your family?”

“I come from Theed,” said Saché, and then, softly, “and I have no family left.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” he said, looking up, and thankfully not looking as upset as she’d feared, more rueful. “But, well, I can’t really do all this stuff if there are people firing at me, can I?”

“Exactly,” she said, and found herself smiling, just a little. “Would you like to come talk with Yané?”

“Let me just get something shut down here,” he said, and she ultimately had to wait nearly ten minutes while he went to the other side of the basement and struggled with something that didn’t seem to want to turn off. Finally, with an exasperated sigh, he pulled a wire loose.

“I hope that’s not something we needed,” she couldn’t help but say as the thing finally stopped humming.

“Doubt it, m’am,” he said. “Lead on.”

Yané was already talking to people. They found her with a young couple that she introduced as Motto and Phelpaé Verderrie, who Saché recognized as having been among those they had evacuated from Julika. “Recruits for your army?” Saché asked her, and Yané’s lips barely twitched to hear it called that as she confirmed that they were. “I’ve brought another.”

She left Schulek with the three of them and went on, back to where the militia men had spent the entire time talking. When she came in, they all stood up. “Decided yet?” she asked.

“Mostly,” said Rorerrie. “As we said earlier, Kladi Hock, along with Yules Latt, will be available to lead refugee groups, and I and Kitpat Arthi will work with the army, as well Jan Kloiterrie. The rest of us will join the attack group.”

That made sense, taking the older two men for the army. “Very well, then,” she said. “Borreno has recommended we empty this place as much as possible tonight; that’s what will probably be safest at this point; we certainly can’t stay here much longer anyway. He’s trying to work out times; he warned me there’s a chance the fighters might have to stay, but we’re determined to get all three refugee groups out. Stay here, and I’ll bring him back and the other handmaidens so we can hear the latest of what he has to say.”

“May I go instead, m’am?” asked Latt.

She knew why, and for a moment she hesitated, but then she said, “You may, but please go quickly.” Even with the admonishment, she knew there’d be moments he’d linger to exchange words with people, and he wouldn’t find anyone nearly as fast as she would, but hopefully it would keep his delays within reason.

When he was gone, Drosos Merine stepped forward. “May I ask, m’am, if you know what they’ll be having us do?”

“You may,” said Saché, “although there won’t be a need. I’ll tell you as soon as I know myself. Right now I’m afraid I don’t at all.” She noticed the expressions of some of the men as she said this, but at least none of them looked surprised. If they’d gauged her at all, they knew she’d never be one from fancy plotting and keeping objectives from people out of a thought they should keep information on a need-to-know basis. She hoped that wouldn’t cause any problems.

“Saché?” Losté poked her head in, followed immediately by Ené. “Those going into the three refugee groups are currently getting arranged into those groups. Borreno wants all of us there, to receive updates in news as they happen.”

In front of everybody, which wasn’t ideal, but Saché wasn’t going to argue with him about it. “Very well,” she said. “Maybe he’ll even tell us what we’re going to do.”

Saché had lost track of time, but afternoon was either arrived or close to it. It was a humid day, the kind that would make them feel the fact that none of them had properly bathed since the morning of the invasion, though they’d all quickly splashed themselves with sink water at points here in Piyoeré. That would be worse for those going into swamps.

Coming to the main square where everyone was gathered was the first chance she had to get an idea of who had chosen to fight and who had chosen to flee. It didn’t look at first glance like very many people would be left for the army. That wasn’t surprising, she reminded herself. The Naboo had never liked fighting, were still only learning to do it, and even wrapping their heads around the notion that they could would be too much for most of them. Besides, it might work out better for Yané if she didn’t have to handle too large a group.

Borreno came over when he saw her. “We’ve nearly gotten the refugee groups settled,” he said to her,” and she could see that, as the people in the square were largely split up into three masses. “It’s about the numbers we expected, which makes things a little easier. When he finds us, I’d like you to tell Yules Latt that the first group out wants him to lead them.” He gestured to the group in question. Saché noticed it included Kya and her baby.

“I want to lead the last group,” said Lané.

“I think it would be best, then,” said Borreno, “if Briné went with the second. They’ll be going through a route I understand you know, miss. It’ll also be slightly bigger than the others, so perhaps Hock should accompany them as well.” Both people concerned nodded their agreement.

“The second group being bigger,” Saché noted, “they should go at the darkest time of the night. That’s about half an hour after midnight, right?” That was when she believed both moons would be down.

“A bit later; we’ll depart when Rori is on the horizon. The army will depart tomorrow night; meanwhile I’ll try to get in touch with as much of the rest of the resistance as possible, see if there are others you can meet up with as well as where it would be most prudent to meet up with them. Your small fighting squad will be the last people to leave here; send the army off in the evening hours before departing yourselves in the early morning hours. By then we may even have your first destination for you.”


End file.
